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Stories by Women Business Owners in their own words
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1 https://wordpress.org/?v=5.1156361853Kelly Fennelly Gives Back with a Non Profit – Learn How You Can Toohttps://myownbossinc.com/2019/02/15/kelly-fennelly-gives-back-with-a-non-profit-learn-how-you-can-too/
https://myownbossinc.com/2019/02/15/kelly-fennelly-gives-back-with-a-non-profit-learn-how-you-can-too/#respondFri, 15 Feb 2019 19:19:48 +0000https://myownbossinc.com/?p=167As I’ve talked to the amazing ladies who own business, there’s a common thread that keeps popping up – and that’s the desire to give back. And what’s even cooler is that these women aren’t waiting until they reach some lofty position of wealth and security. They are either looking to create or are actively […]

]]>As I’ve talked to the amazing ladies who own business, there’s a common thread that keeps popping up – and that’s the desire to give back. And what’s even cooler is that these women aren’t waiting until they reach some lofty position of wealth and security. They are either looking to create or are actively involved in creating ways to support and care for those needing a hand in some way. Today I talk to Kelly Fennelly, an entrepreneur who also founded a non-profit, The Little Black Dress Party. She tells us how it all works, and she know, because like a lot of you amazing gals, she did it all herself!

Julie: It’s so cool that a lot of the women that we’ve been talking to with the Instagram project, have the desire is to give back, and some of them bring up the nonprofit idea, and Kelly, you ’ve done it and you’ve done an amazingly good job on it. And watching you grow has been so much fun!

I’ll just say real quick, that Kelly founded and operates a nonprofit called The Little Black Dress Party. And each year she changes the charity that gets the benefits and the proceeds from her event, which is an awesome little black dress party. She has a silent auction, a raise the paddle, then auctions off men from law enforcement and firefighters with really fun things to do on their date. And you just got done with one last week, right? And this year, who’s the beneficiary of the proceeds?

Kelly: This year, we went red dress as well as a black dress since we are giving to a firefighter fund. So this year it’s Eastside Firefighters’ Benevolent Fund, and then last year, it was law enforcement and the year before that it was a children’s organisation.

Julie: I love the way you change it up each year, and you pick such wonderful and often overlooked agencies to give to, so I think that’s really cool.

Kelly: Thanks. They’re definitely not big ones and some of them are just starting.

Julie: How do you select them?

Kelly: I usually put feelers out there to people that I know and then just talking with other people. I put it out on social media, and we might do that again this year, but I usually someone reaches out to me first.

Julie: It’s kind of an undertaking, and you’ve been doing it for seven or eight years now?

Kelly: Yes, we just finished our seventh year.

Julie: What made you decide to just put the whole thing together? Because again, it’s quite an undertaking and it takes time to get your nonprofit status. I’m hoping you can walk us through that. But what was your driving force?

​​Kelly: I had an ASPGE, I “another freaking personal growth experience” in my life, and so I was going through that in 2010 as a single mom to a 17-month-old and self-employed. And so I decided that this would be a kind of fun idea to put together a little event where we feature our silent auction, and raffles, and a Women in Business focus – that’s where I’m a. I had previously done work with a local nonprofit that’s quite big now, but at that time I helped them with some events. So I thought well, I know the whole background of procurement and it from the ground up, and I’m like, Oh, I can do this! So I put it together and then we launched our first event in 2012 and then 2013 we got our 501 C 3 status.

Julie: So you just fill out a form with the government?

Kelly: Yes. Well, I bootstrapped it all. I figured out how to put all my procurement and letters and also filled out the articles of incorporation with the state and the IRS forms. I had one person that gave me advice, but usually people will pay an attorney. There are people – an attorney or an accountant – that will fill it out, but I didn’t have those and couldn’t afford to pay for that. So I did it on my own.

Julie: And you do so much, you bootstrap everything. I have huge admiration for people who do that.

Kelly: This person that was helping us, he’s like “I think you can figure it out.” So I figured it out and then ran it past him. Filling out the forms and stuff, I had to figure that out. But yeah, I did it and we got our status. In the meantime, I just kept procuring stuff all year long and finding nearby venues and raising funds.

Julie: Did you have the 501 C3 status the first year?

Kelly: No, it went into effect the second year.

Julie: What I liked about it is that you focus on women in business, and it’s a women’s only event. And you get really awesome things donated. Didn’t you get a chocolate making class this year? So it’s clear you give a lot of yourself to this…how much time you think you spend putting it together?

Kelly: The week before, there’s at least 40 hours that goes into getting ready for it with our software and stuff. But yet again, I’m doing work all year long. A lot of our in-kind donors, they’ve been participating for years now, so I go to them first. They announce my event and then I start procuring in January because businesses are making their budgets then. SO I start procuring early on just to get my name in the hat of charities they will donate to in that calendar year.

Julie: Yes, ​that’s really good. Because when you think ahead that way, you’re more likely to avoid that last minute scramble. And then you’re also working on your bachelor candidates, aren’t you?

Kelly: Yes, I’m always recruiting. I go back to my database of past bachelors and they’re good guys, so I check with them first, but they’re not always available because they’ve been scooped up! But I go back to them and ask them for referrals too.

The really nice thing is we’ve really kind of fine tuned what ‘date’ or event each bachelor is paired with. And it’s cool because I’ve been able to get nicer and bigger things as the years have gone by.

Julie: What was the biggest one you had this year for the pairing with the bachelor?

Kelly: It was a balloon ride, it’s possibly the most expensive one and more. Because it’s an afternoon balloon ride sunset for two with appetizers and champagne.

And then we have some other ones, because I try to put as many adventures out there as possible. So as we have overflow they go into the silent auction. Everything was really great this year!

Julie: I have liked watching LBDP grow and I love seeing how you’ve pivoted whenever you need to and if it’s not working you flip it. And the other thing I want to say is it to anybody who’s thinking about doing this, especially event related, it’s just having that flexibility and ability to overcome anything that’s thrown at you.

Kelly: I think I’ll always find a way to fix it.

Julie: Let’s go into some of the bookkeeping side or the paperwork side, you got your 501 C3 status. And so now what do you have to do for the government to maintain that?

Kelly: Okay so I also bootstrap everything. There’s three different forms that I fill out and then document where we’ve donated, as well as our income and expenses. And then I also maintain my C-Corp status with the state, and then file all the paperwork for taxes.

Julie: The due date, you have to be careful, right? So anyway, with the non-profit you have to be just that more conscious of how you track things and where your money’s going, correct?

Kelly: The software that we use to put all of our silent auction, live auction at a value and run our tickets through all of our funds go through there. That does a good way of tracking. But then I also keep any other spreadsheet as well as a tracker. And I’ve been in and then over the years, been able to really the initial costs for some of the things that we already have, our office supplies, those kind of things, like I might get a ream of paper or something. But I’ve been able to dial it to where we don’t have a lot of expenses out there. Like, it’s really streamlined now. I’m grateful for that.

For example, my mom helps me a little bit each year before, and I used to buy the bid numbers and they can be kind of pricey. But they’re just printed on, so I don’t do that anymore, because it’s a waste of money and then I don’t end up getting them back. But yes, so I just get some card stock paper. I have a little paper cutter and then we just write out numbers and my mom has great handwriting.

Julie: So that’s a handmade paddle, that’s really good!

Then you’re able to keep those costs down and you’re able to give more to charity that you want to give to. So that’s the whole goal of it is to keep your expenses down and everything else so that ultimately the charity benefits and I know how grateful they are for what you do for them. I listened to the speeches and have been brought to tears by the story there. So it’s really a good thing you’re doing. What’s the most challenging, let’s say the business part of it?

Kelly: I would say, we just do annual event, so on the business side is I’m the data entry person, I’m the procuring person, sometimes doing all of it. It’s me monitoring everything because I’m overseeing that procurement, but also making sure it gets into the software, and then recording that stuff.

Julie: But you keep really good records, and you’ve got your spreadsheet and got statements and everything’s accessible. You’re not having to scramble to find it and get copies from the think of anything, so you do a really good job keeping everything where it needs to be.

So on the events side, what’s really challenging?

Kelly: I think every year it’s been something different. But I think consistently over the years, it’s been the fashion show piece because we have our own fashion show, seel auction, live auction and I can’t be in all places at the same time. And to be honest, getting people to volunteer is also not the easiest thing but I get it figured out. It’s managing that because it’s one section and this year we have three boutiques and each boutique has six models and getting those people queued up to go an making sure they’re on time…

Julie: So it’s really making a wonderful evening out for the ladies.

Kelly: Our models are our everyday gals. That’s the other piece that I like…

Julie: Yes. There’s people of all ages, women of all ages and builds and everything else. So we see a little bit of everybody in there. And everybody looks fantastic.

Kelly: Yeah, our demographic is I would say about 35 to 55 and that is the base of it. And then there’s definitely outside of that age range. So for us, we want to make sure that we represent everybody.

Julie: So if you’re going to give advice to somebody who wanted to get their 501 C3 status and create a non profit, what would that be?

Kelly: I would say, definitely get some great software, if that is from keeping great books, which is huge. I’d say definitely use QuickBooks and have someone help you set that up. And then also get a great software system for just specifically for your auction. silent auction…

Julie: What’s the name of what you’re using?

Kelly: It’s called Auctria.

Julie: That’s a good advice. Because everything else you can pull together with hard work and personality. But this kind of software, a piece of the puzzle kind of keeps you on track with the future.

Kelly: And then another thing, too, is if you do have a small team of people that you’re working with to help you doing a Trello Board. I keep a Trello Board just for project management but it’s a great place to house if people are sharing documents for procurement and different letters.

Julie: This is a great tool for when you have a team working on things and everybody can see what’s going on.

Thanks for being with me today. I appreciate it. A little black dress right? What’s your Instagram handle? And your Facebook page where people can go check it out?

]]>https://myownbossinc.com/2019/02/15/kelly-fennelly-gives-back-with-a-non-profit-learn-how-you-can-too/feed/0167This Woman Rocks in Techhttps://myownbossinc.com/2019/02/15/this-woman-rocks-in-tech/
https://myownbossinc.com/2019/02/15/this-woman-rocks-in-tech/#respondFri, 15 Feb 2019 19:16:52 +0000https://myownbossinc.com/?p=164Take a minute to inventory your technical and wireless equipment. The stuff you rely on every single day. Your smartphone, your computer, your tablet. Maybe a home security system and all the things that connect us as well. Now think about every tiny little thing that has to be in perfect alignment with each other […]

]]>Take a minute to inventory your technical and wireless equipment. The stuff you rely on every single day. Your smartphone, your computer, your tablet. Maybe a home security system and all the things that connect us as well. Now think about every tiny little thing that has to be in perfect alignment with each other to make it work. Mind-boggling, isn’t it? Our need for connection is what makes Abbie Gaines business successful. And Abbie rocks in a tech world dominated by men. She’s helping pave the way for a younger generation of women to embrace a place in the exciting technology industry. I was so excited to talk to Abbie Gaines, who I have been following on Instagram for a long time now. She is the proud owner of iRepair Wireless and savior of broken devices. I hope you learn a lot and enjoy our chat as much as I did. She is amazing! Listen to our conversation through the podcast links or read it down below!

Julie: The best thing about being an entrepreneur is that you can take your kids to work!

Abbie: It is a blessing. But then it’s a little stressful when you’re with a client and then they call your name.

Julile: How old is your daughter?

Abbie: She’s two.

Julie: I also took our daughter to work. We had a restaurant, and I think it’s good for kids to see that too – watching mommy work.

Abbie: Oh yeah, definitely.

Julie: How long have you had iRepair Wireless?

Abbie: I’ve had my Richmond Hill location for about three years already. And my Hinesville location is brand new – it’s been open two months ago

Julie: I was watching you on Instagram as you geared up for the opening. How’s it going?

Abbie: It’s going really good. Luckily, a lot of our clients are army based. So the base is located in Hinesville. So instead of traveling to Richmond Hill, they have the Hinesville location now. So we already had set clients for this location.

Julie: That was smart when you decided to expand. A lot of people will expand, and they don’t look at that part closely, and then they’re putting their resources, money and leveraging themselves and they have to wait for the clients to come.

You repair iPhones and then all computers, gaming systems, surveillance systems… How did you get started with this?

Abbie: Originally, I was never in the technology world I want to say I got into this industry about four and a half years ago.

My husband actually joined the army so we moved from Los Angeles, California to Savannah, Georgia and when we moved here I had nothing to do so I just decided to look for a job. I happened to apply for a job that needed a receptionist and it happened to be a repair IT job. And once I started working there, that’s how I got into this field, I started doing all their paperwork, all their ordering and after a year I got bored. Like everything’s done is there anything else I can do? And my studies on repairs was hands on and I just I don’t even know I liked doing repairs and taking stuff apart…

Julie: You’re like the ideal employee for me when you were working there. Because I always love to have people who want to go beyond their job and learn. You know that someday they’re going to leave and they’re going to open their own business or they’re going to do something really cool, and that’s what you did.

So did you take classes or did you learn on the job there?

Abbie: No, I got certified through Samsung.I didn’t get certified through Apple because their requirements are a little – they don’t make sense to me.

So I didn’t get certified through them only because with them when you do a repair you can’t go ahead and do it. You have to literally send the device to them and wait for them to send it to me. It just didn’t make sense. If I have the knowledge, why would I send it to you when I can do it here and have it done within 15 minutes?

Julie: I don’t want to wait – you know – I need that phone now. So where did you get the idea to open your own?

Abbie: After working for the company I was working at, I think I was there for about three years when I decided “hey you know what I’m pretty much doing everything”. Like I would be a technician, I’d deal with a client that client, I would do the ordering and still do customer service I was like, you know, why not just branch out and franchise? Because originally I was a franchise location and that’s how I pretty much came about. I ended up franchising, but after a year to our contract I decided to break our contract and to become an independent owner.

So that’s pretty much how that happened. I just figured that I can do it myself because I was already doing it myself. So why not have to pay franchise fees? And that was my biggest thing. I didn’t see why I was paying franchise fees towards a name that shares weren’t big enough for me to pay for.

Julie: A lot of people in fact, just yesterday it came up with a client that’s going okay, want to open this business. I I’m interested in the franchise, should I do it? And I said, NO. I will teach you everything you need to know about that business and you don’t have to pay fees and you’ll have that knowledge forever without having to pay fees.

Abbie: And then you run the risk of not knowing if the franchisors going to be at their franchise, in the sense where they’re going to promote for you and see you as one of the franchise locations versus being a competitor. Unfortunately, in my field, I was like that as a competitor, although I was a franchise location. So that’s the main reason why I ended the contract because there was no benefit of me having your name if you’re gonna see me as a competitor versus one of your locations.

Julie: How many employees do you have in your location?

Abbie: I have two and I co-own the stores with my husband and we’re both technicians. So my husband and I rotate from stores, and then my employees, I have one employee per store. So there’s always two technicians at each location.

Julie: So one of the things I just love about what you’re doing is, I love your “Ask Abbie”. What gave you that idea?

Abbie: When clients will come into the store, they’ll ask you questions, and they were very simple questions, where I was like, “you didn’t have to really come into the store you could just message me on Facebook, or Instagram, or just give me a call.” And I don’t mind helping. If it’s something that I don’t have to take apart to figure out and then there’s no point for me charging you for it.

So I was like, let me make something where people can just, message me versus, wasting their gas to come see me. When it’s something as simple as “Oh just reset your phone and it will fix the issue}” So I came up with the Ask Abbie. And also the reason why I came up with that was because, I feel like a lot of consumers buy products only because it’s a brand name, everyone knows it, but we really don’t know how to use them. And I wanted to inform people how to use this device, or at least have a little bit of knowledge of the device that they have. That way when something does go wrong. And it’s something minor, they don’t panic because that’s what I see a lot. A lot of my customers panic because you don’t know how to use your devices when it’s something as simple as, Oh, you put it on airplane mode or you know, very simple.

Julie: You just find out either by accident, or your kid tells you in my case, you know, “Mom, you dummy.” And I’m fairly savvy about technology…but there’s so much to know. So I totally enjoy it.

I don’t want to be offensive in any way but here I love it, because you’re in the tech field and you’re a little bit of a girly girl because you got those cool nails and the your boots totally rock.

Abbie: That’s why I decided to do an Instagram business page because you don’t see a lot of women in the tech world. And when you do see a girl doing a technician work we don’t get the credit we deserve.

Like even now I’ve been doing this for a while and when someone walks through the door and you know I greet them I talk to them and they’re like oh, is the technician here? Can I talk to him? When I first started it used to really bother me I would really get upset and I will be like well you’re speaking to her but now I understand they’re used to having a man savior as someone who can fix something. That’s why the Instagram page I want to be able to open people’s eyes that there are not only men in this industry. Not only men can take stuff apart and put them back together.

Julie: Love that. That’s one of the reasons why I wanted to talk to you because I think it’s inspiring, number one, and I love that you’re out there with it. And your videos are really helpful. And you know, it’s not the intention, but we walk around with those preconceptions, and we think, “Oh it’s computers so it’s gotta be a guy.” When computers started, it was predominantly male. But I have a cousin who is an amazing software developer, and does this really cool stuff. She loves being in the field, but there’s not enough of us.

What what kind of plans do you have for the future are you planning on expanding more?

Abbie: I’ve had a lot of people from our Instagram or Facebook come and inquire about franchising locations, and I’m not sure about franchising, but I was thinking of pretty much running a course where I teach you how to run a technology store and how to capture people’s attention… to come to you versus going to a competitor or whatever the case is, or going to Apple for example.

So I was thinking of running a program like that versus franchising. It is not worth franchising a small business. Sometimes I can have great days and sometimes have bad days and when you have those bad days that franchise fee that you’re going to pay is a little excessive, so I wouldn’t want to do that to someone. So I was pretty much sure to run a course of let’s say a three day four hours or a week course and I teach you the ins and outs I could use vendors that you can use I give you pretty much everything that I know is going to be in that course and I’ve had a lot of people – I have right now someone in Texas that wants to open one and then another one in Atlanta and South Carolina. I’m working on that but right now I really want to focus on the store that I have right now.

Julie: My mind’s already playing with it – I love the idea of the coursework. The thing about what you’re doing is the loyalty is there. Just that one little thing gets you loyalty and good feedback and word of mouth.

Those little business things that a lot of times, small business owners will forget. Because like you said, you’re looking at your friendship sphere you’re looking at the cost of running the business every day and so you sort of start grabbing in instead of reaching out and forget that okay I might be giving away five minutes to free information but I’m spreading all kinds of goodwill.

I love your Instagram page and you know I would recommend just you know keep doing that and then even expand it more if you can because the Ask Abbie thing could really take off.

Abbie: That’s what we’ve been working on it – like I said we’re both entrepreneurs, my husband and I, and I have a four year old and a two year old and we gotta go pick them up and coming back we’re like “Oh my god we really need to work on this!” because a lot of people do use the Ask Abbie. On our Facebook clients always ask me something… I have clients that do not update their phone until I upload a video reviewing the software update!

Julie: I just see that’s really going to get you he press and the following to get the coursework in place where you can make the money there. And you you’ve got you’ve got such a great business plan here, and I know it’s so hard to struggle with kids & business. Your kids are the same age difference as mine were, and my husband I have been in business together (I hate to admit it because It’s long!) over 30 years. So I just want you to know it can be done – we are still together and our kids are both adults – not living at home.

Our daughter’s an entrepreneur and she has her own business and I actually had an interview with her because she did a super successful Kickstarter and then our son has a really good job and is planning on being an entrepreneur himself. So, have hope, it’s really the years that you’re at they’re fun and gets hectic…

Abbie: Right. That’s what I tell ‘cause my clients come in and sometimes my daughter she’s only two but she requires a lot of attention. So you know sometimes I’m talking to them she’s on my hip and then I I’m like oh my god, how do you do it? Like I just have to figure it out, you know. I feel like we’re told we can’t do it because we have kids and have to focus on our kids and like my dreams can’t stop because of my kids – my dreams are going to fund my kid. So at the end of the day if that requires waking up at six or seven in the morning. You know, I’ll get them in a routine where when they do go to school, they’re ready in routine. So it’s not typical on them to get dressed and start work.

Julie: When you think about it what you’re doing, and what I did is not all that unusual. It’s just in the last 50 or 70 years that this child rearing truth has become so huge that we revolve around the kids, but before, kids had to fit into the working world. Your farm was the job or this is the job. Of course things were harder back then, but there’s something to be said for kids seeing the real world too.

I think you try to protect the kids from that real world when you know the real world is working and learning to get along with other people. You’re patterning so many wonderful things for your kids, I think it’s awesome. I wouldn’t be surprised if you don’t have two little entrepreneurs of your own.

Abbie: I hope so. My son’s already, he’ll be like “mom, can I have a screwdriver to take the phone apart?” and I’m like “no,” and he said, “but I can fix it!” and I’m sure you can but we’re not going to do that.

Julie: Do you let him play with the ones that are kinda’ toast?

Abbie: I do. I let him take apart an iPhone 4. Of course I’ve been supervising it because screwdrivers are a little sharp for them.

But he actually knows a lot, he knows his way around a computer since he was three and a half years, he’s able to turn on the computer, login, go on YouTube and I was like, I’m gonna have to be careful with you. You’re a little to advanced for my life right now.

Julie: We’re gonna be putting in those parental locks.

Abbie: Yeah, those went up real quick. Once I started noticing that he was able to navigate through the computer and the studies. I was like, Oh, no parental controls coming.

Julie: Their brains are just like sponges and he’s watching you and just experimenting and I think that’s cool.

Abbie: I see him getting into the field because he’s very infatuated with everything that he saw that we do.

Julie: That’s cool. I should send you my iPhone that died and you can take it apart.

Abbie: That’d be great. I’m doing a Technology museum also. So I collect old computers, old cell phones. You take them out and we take them apart and we show clients what they look like inside.

Sometimes clients don’t understand, like “Oh you mean the charger works next to the headphone jack? Why do I have to replace that and it’s already taken apart.” I can show you well this is a component I have to repair and as you can see, it’s all worth doing it. So that has helped me out a lot.Being an entrepreneur and a mother sounds simple when you read it but in reality it takes a LOT to be a mompreneur. But like what I’ve discussed with Abbie, it comes with rewarding results in the future. Your children will end up learning how to value their work at an early age and who knows might also end up having their own businesses. Let’s show Abbie lots of love on her IG account @irepair_wireless_ and @kinghonor_

]]>https://myownbossinc.com/2019/02/15/this-woman-rocks-in-tech/feed/0164Two Women Take a Passion Project and Crowdfund a Company into Existencehttps://myownbossinc.com/2019/02/15/two-women-take-a-passion-project-and-crowdfund-a-company-into-existence/
https://myownbossinc.com/2019/02/15/two-women-take-a-passion-project-and-crowdfund-a-company-into-existence/#respondFri, 15 Feb 2019 19:12:30 +0000https://myownbossinc.com/?p=161One of the questions that I get asked the most is “Where do I find the money to open my business?” or expand it. The old answer used to be banks or personal loans, but a new way to raise money has exploded onto the scene – crowdfunding. I know people who have been successful […]

]]>One of the questions that I get asked the most is “Where do I find the money to open my business?” or expand it. The old answer used to be banks or personal loans, but a new way to raise money has exploded onto the scene – crowdfunding. I know people who have been successful with it, as well as a few who were not funded. I think my favorite crowdfunding success stories is The Threads of Fate, founded by Blaire Porter and Brit Murphy. Blaire shares her entrepreneurial journey with us and provides insight and lessons for anyone interested in crowdfunding. And if you’re wondering why this is my favorite? Well, that’s because Blaire is my daughter… an entrepreneur since… oh, about six years of age! Listen as we talk about how she and her business partner started their phenomenal Kickstarter.

Julie: I’m here with Blaire and we’re talking about her entrepreneurial journey. So Blaire, it seems like you always had an eye to owning your own business. Can you tell me where it started?

And just a quick overview of where we’re going: we’re get into the Kickstarter shortly, but first, let’s start off with how you got into business. Can you tell me a little bit about that?

Blaire: I’ve always kind of wanted to do stuff myself, mainly because I am not a good employee, I don’t do what I’m supposed to do. But I also will go into an already established system and I will identify how it should be run. And you know,bosses don’t want to hear what they’re doing wrong.

My dad wanted to instill within us how to be a good employee, like washing the dishes how a good employee would do it. That thing and I think I’ve always kind of felt like the shame of I am not a good employee because I just don’t want to work for other people. I’m more like Him in that way. And I think that he also he instilled in us to be an entrepreneur, but also a good employee, so that was an interesting. There were interesting lessons. So from the age of four I had my little my golf ball stands or my band… You know I made you guys buy massages from me too!

I think also growing up listening to you guys talk about things so often, late at night. I would kind of sit up late and sit on the top of the stairs and listen to you guys talk about the consulting and I just thought it was interesting, and I thought like it was obvious that you guys really enjoy talking about those things and the problem solving. I didn’t know what you were talking about, but it seemed like it was more exciting than just going into jobs – that’s kind of what appealed to me.

Julie: Now you have a good business goin’. (Side note: Blaire went to college with a pitching scholarship. So she got her education paid for and then you know, she grew that into a business doing clinics and private lessons.)

So then next, I know you tried working for somebody and hated it. And then you left that and then…

Blaire: I worked for a few people, a few like sociopath and yeah it was just kind of, you know, like in one job I felt paralyzed in a way, I was always afraid of doing something wrong and he was kind of abusive and then another one was just like, he was paying me a $40,000 salary and so I had to live there he’s like, just really insane expectations and I’m not very good like I said, working for other people, and feeling like my livelihood is out of my hand does not feel good for me.

Julie: That’s an entrepreneur. You know. And then, kind of for a break you ended up working in a bead store.

And then you went on a spiritual journey and you kind of found yourself and you developed the business that was the real beginning for you. I think it’s kind of what I love about what you do is you’ve got this really wonderful spiritual side but you also have a really practical business side, so you found something you really connected with and you found a way to connect with thousands of people because in your journey, you you know, with your Instagram page, and they really look to you for spiritual guidance. Even though it started off with a product and it grew great.

Blaire: It started out as a product and but I think more people we’re more interested in my captions necessarily than what lot of times I was selling. And that’s been kind of my process to is really identifying what separates me. And one of the things that I like doing, at this point, I’ve learned a lot of things that I don’t want to do. And I that’s kind of fulfilling in a way and it frees up a lot of like a lot of creativity and do what I want to do.

Julie: Okay, like, “I think I’m gonna try this and see how it works”. And then you see if it did or did not work and then you moved on and you tried other things.

Blaire: Yeah, and you just kind of see what you’re built for. You know, there’s a lot of things that I see other people doing, I’m like, “Oh, I wish I could do that.” But I also just know that that’s not in my nature, like it’s not it’s not in my nature to go sell things and so I feel like I have to, you know, I have to constantly be connecting with other people. You know, that’s not because I’m someone who prefers her time to herself.

So I think being like really being clear on what those things are and that’s something that I had found in a lot of people and talking to a lot of other entrepreneurs like especially in the social media world like we see things that other people do and we’re like oh I love that I want to try doing that and then we just kind of go down all these different paths without realizing that that’s not that’s not what we should be doing for ourselves you know our efforts may be better spent elsewhere. And so I think that a lot of the the entrepreneurial journey is just being really honest with yourself about you know who you are and what you can do and what’s reasonable to expect from yourself – good I’m not going to wake up tomorrow and all the sudden be someone who can sell themselves.

Julie: That’s smart that you take an accounting of the person and looking what your strengths and weaknesses are…

Blaire: Yeah, you gotta take an inventory…

Julie: But there’s so much then I think, distraction I kind of call it “squirrel squirrel!” syndrome, where you see all these cool things you want, hey oh I want to do that I want to try that and but that’s not my strength and then it’s kind of like and I’m not you know I’m all about change but there’s also committing to a path to finding that strength…

Blaire: So no for it you know and what I think one of the quote that kind of it’s not a quote but just the concept of I read a few different places just saying like so many people spend time trying to develop their weaknesses or what they are perceived flaws are and in reality they should be trying to make their strengths stronger. And that’s when I felt like I finally had permission to be like, Okay, what I want to do is not working one on one with people it’s not even, you know teaching a class or anything. So I need to figure out what, my strength in doing this. And so, I need to develop that as opposed to trying to force myself to be a better communicator, in a class setting or something.

Julie: And that’s what I think, is a struggle for a lot of entrepreneurs, especially in the starting stages where, you kind of have to wear all the hats to do every day. But then there comes a point where you’re going, Okay, I don’t want to do this. I really hate it. I gotta pass that off. And there’s nothing that says, you have to do your own bookkeeping forever, you have to understand financials. But take that off, if you’re overwhelmed by social media, find someone who’s got your voice and that you’re so right, that a lot of times it’s like we’re trying to beat a dead horse trying to make ourselves if I just focus on this, if I just put on my calendar, I’ll learn how to do it or I’ll start liking it. You know, being true to yourself, like you say.

So let’s talk about, we’ll go into this Kickstarter, the project which I think was totally awesome. I remember you came to me and described it to me and I was blown away. I liked the partnership, something about you and Brett and then how you got the idea.

Blaire: Brit and I have been best friends for over a decade now and we’ve kind of gone on parallel journeys in a way and a couple years ago we kind of threw around the idea of making an Oracle deck, which is like a tarot deck for those who don’t know, and it’s basically a deck that has 50 cards and it has beautiful artwork and accompanying messages.

Julie: And it’s more for personal spiritual journey and in your life journey. Is that right?

Blaire: Right. And so we kind of tossed the idea around, but we didn’t really have a clear idea of what we wanted the art to look like. And so it took a while for that to come together. And then little over a year ago, we had a clear vision of what we wanted it to be and what we want it to look like.

And then it was kind of zero to 60 almost. I didn’t want us to a close up shop but I stopped focusing on my personal work and just focused on the deck, and there was a lot more that goes into it than we originally anticipated, so I closed up shop just focused on the deck and after five or six months we got our sample cards and then about a month and a half after we got the sample, and then we held a Kickstarter that was 28 days long.

Julie: I’m going to back up a little bit because the process being… just for anybody listening… that part of the development of it was that you did your research on it. You show me the artwork, you showed other people that artwork, so that’s you doing the little test on it. I’m going to say that (it’s not because I’m your mom) the combination of your layering and then Brits beautiful art is off the charts. And then, you know, we talked about how to make it set apart and you and Brit came up with the gold foil, which just totally pops it and makes it just that much more amazing. So, you knew you were finding, you were looking for that niche and you really you claimed that and that’s what’s really cool.

And then you did your research, I believe in what it would cost to get started, right?

Blaire: Yeah, it was a chunk of change. 25 grand or 30 grand something. About that also depends on the amount of decks you’re getting, the more deck you’d get, you know, the better because you have within you have to factor in all the shipping. And so I ended up being quite a bit there was no way that we could find a manufacturer in the states to do that through the overseas. It’s just because we wanted gold foil, we wanted 55 different designs of gold foil, which means that they have to make 55 molds for them. So that I mean, they’re beautiful, very intricate, and they have to have to be them precisely.

So that was a challenge to kind of find a printer that would do that with all the other specifications that we want in. So there’s a lot of different things that we were kind of insistent upon. The guy ended up being quite a bit. And there was no way that we were going to pay out of pocket for that. But we had seen a few other Oracle deck succeed on Kickstarter.

And so we we went that route, I did a lot of research on what it takes to run a successful Kickstarter, and I really didn’t have much doubt that we would get funded. But I did not anticipate the level in which we would get funded…

Julie: I remember how nervous you were when you launched..

Blaire: Oh, so nervous! And what was funny. The first day I went to hit launch. And it was like, right at 10 am because we were launching at 10 AM and I hit launch and it’s like, “Oh! We found these errors in your launch. So fix these things. And I was like, panicked till we did the last one. But you know, so it’s so funny because it took me another 15 minutes to sort that out.

And I had people text me and messaging and saying “it’s not up, it’s not up!” And I’m like, oh my god. So we got 175% funded and we were fully funded within 48 hours. And that was really cool that you and dad were kept refreshing and checking. I know it was really cool that there’s a lot of people messaging us that we’re keeping tabs and it was we felt very community oriented and the people coming together to get this project going.

Julie: How long does it take to put the Kickstarter together because one of the things that you know, I had understood that can take a month or two to put it together. You guys did an awesome job. You had a really cool video and then you get like kind of those self interviews between you and Brit and I think she were offering and it was really carefully considered. So how long did that take to put together?

Blaire: You know, it actually didn’t take as long as I think other people do that as long as it takes other people. But I think that’s because it was mainly the product in which you’re making, you know, with other like inventions and technical things.

I think it probably takes a lot more but we just had to get clear on what we are going to be offering to cheer levels and then doing the videos so it took us a couple days to shoot the videos of course we had to add some like creative flair. But a lot of people don’t do that I’d and I think that even if we hadn’t done those things it wouldn’t have made that much of a difference what you really do want to be able to show the products that you are, you know, at least a decent prototype that you are planning on making, I think Kickstarter so people don’t really show a clear picture of what it is but there it was funded and it’s you know, so it’s really imperative that you do that.

Julie: I felt like yeah we got to know you and Brit.

Blaire: It’s like you need to you need to talk they need to they need to trust you and care about you.

Julie: You were originally going for 33 then you’ve got funded to 42 and you were able to do a bigger deck and then you got it towards the close of it and you brought in a separate what was it a checkout system so you could get more add on sales

Blaire: Yes so basically the two we want to do our shipping separate because when you put in your funding numbers Kickstarter includes your shipping. We didn’t want that. So as we collected shipping with the Kickstarter, it would say, you know much earlier that we were fully funded if you’re charging $11 for shipping, and that’s I’m not sure if it’s going to be and we really didn’t want to do that because we wanted people to continue to back the project and we didn’t want to inflate that number at all. We didn’t really want to put the shipping costs in the debt costs.

And I know that there’s a lot of different opinions around that some consumers would rather have it in the cost but I think that also people understand shipping costs to you know, there’s a lot they’re not stupid. So we wanted to be more upfront about that, especially given that this is the beginning because once you get the Kickstarter money, and then you buy the stuff if you don’t have enough money to ship the product, you know, you are screwed. So we’re screwed.

We wanted to be separate. So we collected shipping and we allow people to make add on purchases – it was awesome.

Julie: It was really cool, you even had developed some new things.

Blaire: So like some people wanted the deck and they just wanted an altar cloth but they didn’t want the other things that were a part of that hundred and $20 here so we made it possible for them to buy the ultra cloth individually and = that was really good because we ended up collecting another $13,000 but that’s including the shipping costs so at the end of the day it was probably only an extra 5000.

Blaire: But also you know you have to think about how much Stripe takes and how much Kickstarter takes. In total they take about 8%, right, so then when you add that plus shipping it’s a good chunk of change so you really do want to overshoot .I think that’s something that also a lot of people who are on Kickstarter do – underestimate.

Julie: That’s an indication of having a good business mind is to always go up when you’re on your estimates of what you’re going to need, and then you know just factor for everything that you’re going to have to spend the money on. I was really proud that you got all those boxes checked as you went down the road and then you started your Kickstarter and there’s all that excitement elation. And now it’s done and the work kicks in, right?

Blaire: And now it’s like where you have all of the extras for the tiers are pretty much waiting on the deck and the prints which is another giveaway that we’re doing but one thing I will say too is that it’s better to really not give away so much with the extras, I like the things that are built into this tier so it’s like you have your main product but you know you have other things that you want to incentivize people with and it’s better to kind of play it safe when it comes to that I think I wish I had done much better.

Julie: It because you wanted people to sign up quickly so didn’t you do the first people the first whenever people to sign up for in the first three hours that…

Blaire: You got to raise blood yeah it was like those first four hours they get these bracelets. It’s 280, it’s handmade 280 bracelets so that’s like a significant on that one. I don’t mind so much. But I think that there were there were some prints that we’re giving away like art prints of the cards.

It was kind of afterwards where I realized that was not a smart move, because you have to protect those when you ship and I can’t ship them separately, but now it has to come up with these ways of shipping them without them being harmed. We have to we have to cut down on the size. I think I said that they were going to be eight and a half by 11. But there’s no way you can do eight and a half by 11 that we have to make them a bit smaller. So it could fit in the box because we’re getting special shipping boxes made.

So I think that you know, it’s just like you want to be more cautious I think with that because those are all things that you still have to get made and have to give away.

Julie: And that’s really valuable information. So that’s great. But you know, it’s cool because I know that you watching the process and then you’ve got this company, this thing that’s growing and I’m sure that you’ve got plans for kind of a around to now that when the first that goes out and you’ve got people that you’re still be selling it online, right?

Blaire: Correct. So we’ll have you know, extra decks and will be selling those and I hope that when the deck is in social media will be giving out more orders we’re also trying to create kind of an online space where people just to kind of like set the deck apart from maybe other decks too.

When they pull a card they can go online they can learn more they can integrate more with my builds a subscription service around that if we have a big enough database resources that people don’t have to pay a couple dollars a month to be a part of so there’s a few things where we’re trying to kind of make it a little bit more sustainable and we’re tinkering with our second deck now.

Julie: I like that that instead of trying to figure out the least amount to give to people, you did the above and beyond approach. The booklet you wrote to go with it, I thought the descriptions were in great depth, so you know whoever gets your product at the end of all this is going to be wow! They’re going to have that and you know their expectations are being over met, that’s my take on it.

Blaire: I hope so. We’ll see in about a month.

Julie: Yeah, it’s been an interesting journey but thank you for sharing the Kickstarter. I just super appreciate it. And I know that the listeners and the people who read the blog and Q and A’s are going to really enjoy it.

Blaire: I’m happy to answer questions to people have any you can email me. Thank you!

As a small business owner and serial entrepreneur since God was a child, it’s been such a joy to see my baby girl grow into a successful entrepreneur in her own right. From her golf ball stand (she scavenged for lost golf balls, then washed and sold them to golfers), to a pitching lessons & coaching business, to custom jewelry, and on to Threads of Fate…she never stopped developing. So please show Blaire Porter & Brit Murphy lots and lots of love on her IG accounts@thethreadsoffate@iamblaireporter⠀

]]>https://myownbossinc.com/2019/02/15/two-women-take-a-passion-project-and-crowdfund-a-company-into-existence/feed/0161Eilene Johnson Finds a Way to Take a Busy Life and Add a Businesshttps://myownbossinc.com/2019/02/15/eilene-johnson-finds-a-way-to-take-a-busy-life-and-add-a-business/
https://myownbossinc.com/2019/02/15/eilene-johnson-finds-a-way-to-take-a-busy-life-and-add-a-business/#respondFri, 15 Feb 2019 19:06:40 +0000https://myownbossinc.com/?p=158When you’re an entrepreneur, it’s always good to know what’s out there…who else is in your field and what sorts of cool things are happening. In the past, it was called knowing your competition, but things have evolved and today there’s a genuine spirit of collaboration. Our guest this week, Eilene Johnson of @simplyeilene, not […]

]]>When you’re an entrepreneur, it’s always good to know what’s out there…who else is in your field and what sorts of cool things are happening. In the past, it was called knowing your competition, but things have evolved and today there’s a genuine spirit of collaboration. Our guest this week, Eilene Johnson of @simplyeilene, not only got her boost of confidence through her network but grew her own business with the support of people in her niche. I LOVE a good tribe of women business owners! Listen to her heartfelt story on our podcast or read it down below.

Julie: Tell me a little bit about your business. I know that you’ve been crafting…creating handmade things since you were young, crocheting and stitchery… I think you and I grew up in the same neighborhood, because I grew up doing the same things!

Eilene: Yeah, I was just born that way. I love to do that kind of stuff. My grandmother taught me to embroider when I was about eight, you know. She gave me an old coffee tin with embroidery floss, and that was back in the day when she would let me walk to the 88 cent store. You know, they used to have 88 cent stores then, and buy my little supplies, and then she taught me to crochet. And I’ve been crocheting with the same crochet hook for about 40 years.

Julie: Oh, that’s cool.

Eilene: I have the same one. So, yeah. And she just passed away last year at 99, so I have a lot of great memories with her, but, she’s the one who instilled that in me.

And, then, my mom has always been that way, and my sisters are that way. I have very creative siblings in graphic design, and art and woodworking, and so, it kind of came in my family, and some of my children are like that, too. But, I’ve always loved it, and I’ve always used it as a way to create and to make a little extra money, and I never set out to have a business, per se. I did have a pattern business years ago, and I used to advertise in Country Marketplace magazine, but I had five children. I’m not really sure why I kept going, because each pregnancy was really difficult, and I think my husband and I figured up, I had spent over 70 weeks of my life on bed rest with all of my pregnancies.

And, I had my business and I got pregnant with my daughter, and I was immediately on bed rest with her, so, I closed that business and I pretty much just put everything on the back burner, because she ended up being a preemie baby, and then my next daughter ended up being a preemie baby, even more so. I mean, she was born at 27 weeks, and she wasn’t born alive, and I had lost probably, I think they said over 3 liters of blood, and I was having transfusions and they were Life Flighting her. That was a very precarious situation, it took a long time for us to kind of overcome that, and then a couple of years later, my son got cancer, and so, I was really not concentrating on anything on me.

It was all on my family. Basically, head down, survival mode, and I feel kind of bad for that, sometimes. I never wanted my children to remember me as being a sad mom, so, you know, I’d do my little cry in the bathroom with the fan on into the towel, and then come out and be like, “Hey, let’s go to McDonald’s playland.”

Julie: Right.

Eilene: But it was when my son’s cancer came back the second time, right before then, I had started to do a little crafting again, just to help with finances, Christmas was coming up, and his cancer came back, and it was bad.

Eilene: Yes. And it was stage 4, and it had progressed to his adrenals, and his lungs and his brain, and I told my husband, I said, “I can’t do this. I’m gonna have to bench everything again and put it on the back,” and he said, “You know, crafting brings you a lot of joy, and you’ve got a teenage son who isn’t gonna really want you to helicopter over him, and this might be a great thing for you. You can be at home with him and do your thing and still be within shouting distance for him, but you’re not gonna be just like doting over him and making him uncomfortable. So, why don’t you just stick with this.”

Julie: Oh, what a wise man you’re married to.

Eilene: Yeah, so encouraging. He is my number one cheerleader, for sure.

Julie: Oh, that’s great.

Eilene: So, I started doing that, and then, as time went on and he went through treatment, he actually started improving, which was miraculous, because we had not given him very much time to live, and he actually responded to an immunotherapy drug, and now he’s over five years cancer-free, so, we just had a really wonderful milestone, and we just pray for continued health, and we just live optimistically, or guarded, but we embrace all of that and we’re grateful for that. We know a lot of people along the way that were not that lucky, and so, we just take that and we’re happy with it.

In the meantime, with all of that going on, there was a company that reached out to me and asked if I would be a freelance designer for them.

Eilene: And I started traveling to trade shows, and I started feeling like, “Hey, I know how to do all of this stuff.” And I was traveling with a business that was owned by women, a mom and three daughters, and so that was very encouraging

Julie: What was the business, just out of curiosity.

Eilene: The business is Adornment, and they are a family-owned business, and they started, you know, the mom, Cara Lee, started out painting, doing tole painting, and then she had more opportunities, and she had kids, and she had twins, and she had little ones at her feet, and she grew this business, and she’s been doing it for 30 years, so I had really great examples of strong women in the workforce.

Julie: Right, and that’s what we need.

Eilene: Yeah. And then I started traveling to trade shows, which, there were predominantly women at those. And I started just getting more and more of that nudge that, “Hey, you’ve done some really hard things in your life, so you can do hard things, but, you just kind of have to find yourself. What is your passion? What is it that brings you joy that you can do, and don’t be scared of anything. I mean, you’ve done scary stuff, so put that … Don’t look behind you, that’s not the direction you’re going. Go forward and see what is it that makes you happy.”

And so, that’s when I started getting brave, and then, I just took baby steps, and I started an Instagram account, I’m like, “What is Instagram?”

Julie: You’re doing a great job with that, by the way.

Eilene: Thank you. And it was just about 2 1/2 years ago that I had just made the switch that I’m doing this. And my husband was like, “You go for it.” And my kids were like, “Great, Mom, we’re behind you.” So, that’s kind of how I just jumped into it. And, even since then, it has evolved. I was trying to find what is it, my niche, you know, what is it that people like that I do, who is my audience? Who are people that like my style, and try to stay in my own lane, you know.

I don’t need to create what everybody else is creating and making trendy, I need to find the audience that likes my style, and that, something that comes naturally for me, so that I’m not trying to be something that I’m not, and that, something that I don’t feel comfortable doing, or I don’t know, you know, like, I love farmhouse style. I wish someone would come decorate my house.

Julie: I love that, you know, the farmhouse style, and I always get so inspired. I also like about your page is it’s so seasonal, and there’s something about the change of the seasons, and I could tell, you know, okay, this was around the Fourth of July you posted this, and your work is delightful, I love the style, and you’ve got such an eye for color. It’s really, really nice.

Eilene: Oh, thank you, I appreciate that.

Julie: Are you finding that niche, I mean, and going after it strongly? Because it’s beautiful.

Eilene: Actually, I am. Now, as much as I love farmhouse, I don’t know that I know how to decorate farmhouse. Like, I really wish someone would come decorate my house that way. I have a specific style, I don’t even know what style it is, but, whatever it is, and maybe it’s the color, I have a lot of people tell me that they like the combination of colors or fabrics that I put together, which is funny, because I always second-guess those fabric combinations, but whatever it is, I have found a following of people that are very supportive and show up, and who keep me really, really busy in my Etsy shop, and, so I’m very fortunate that way, and I think that’s the biggest thing that I’ve learned, is that, I don’t have to be like everyone else.

Out of this world of how many millions of people there are, I just have to find the people who like what I do.

Julie: Right. I’m looking at that, and that’s good advice for everybody, because I just see so much cookie cutter work out there, and yours is refreshing and different, and it stands out. It definitely does. I’m looking at the pillow you did, it’s pink and yellow and it has crocheted flowers on it.

Eilene: Oh, yeah. Actually, that has … Every time I put a pillow in my shop, or on Instagram, where I combine the crochet with the quilting, it immediately sells. It’s one of the very first things that go, and I just combine two things that I really love doing, and I kind of just thought about it one day. I’m like, “Gosh, I really like making these things, and I like doing this crochet, and I like doing this quilting. I wonder if I could stick it together.”

Julie: That’s the fun part.

Eilene: I looked on Pinterest to see if anyone had done that and what it looked like, and I couldn’t find anything, and I thought, “Well, I’ll just …” You know, I played around with how do I do that, how do I get it to stay on, you know, how do I do it in a quality way so that it folds, you know, people putting it on their couch. And I thought, “Well, I’ll just try it, and if people like, it, great, and if they don’t …” And, actually, that has been a really, really good seller for me. Those will go very fast. And, I just did a pumpkin pillow, and I put flowers. And I thought, “Well.” You know, tons and tons of people do felt flowers, which I adore, but I don’t know how to do felt flowers.

I don’t know how to do flowers. But I know how to crochet. So I just combined that and those absolutely were the things that sold out immediately on my last sale.

Julie: It makes your work pop in a way. I mean, because the quilting is lovely. But then when you add the crochet element, it’s just so cool. It’s just something unique and different. I want that because we all want to be a little bit different with what we have.

What do you envision you seeing yourself going with this? The Etsy shop is great. And I like that you can reach the consumer. For years and years – decades and forever, the crafts people had to try to find a shop to carry their work in or else go to markets and fairs and things like that. But this gives you direct access to the consumer. How are you liking that? Where do you see yourself going?

Eilene: Well, I love it and I was one of those people who did travel and who did take my stuff on the road and I put it in trucks and confinement stores and I did Facebook and I did local craft fairs and I sponsored local craft fairs. And those were great, but you know what? The places that I was going to, that was not my audience of people. People always said they liked my items, but my price points were always very low. And I would always sell out of things. But then at the end of the day, everyone would always tell me, “Your prices are too low. How do you even make any money? How do you pay yourself?” I don’t pay myself. I’m hoping to just … My time is one of those things that doesn’t really matter. And a lot of people do that.

And it wasn’t until I just started gaining some confidence and gaining more customers through Instagram that I decided … I think it was about a year ago. I decided I was going to start paying myself. And I was really fearful to do that. And I wasn’t charging shipping. And I decided charging shipping.

Julie: Oh, good for you.

Eilene: It didn’t seem to matter. People were …

Julie: No.

Eilene: I still has many or, if not, more people show up. And so I would definitely see my company staying in the e-commerce community. I think it’s good.

Julie: Yeah. It’s a good] for you. Yeah, I totally agree with you on the market’s business.

Eilene: They’re great. They really are, but they’re a lot of hard work. And you are on your feet-

Julie: The time.

Eilene: … for days and-

Julie: Yeah, giving up your time.

Eilene: … putting up stuff and-

Julie: Do you make it back and do you … You know, all that stuff. And then you have to have all the inventories for the show

Eilene: Yes.

Julie: You know, you can almost … I mean, not totally, but you can have some in stock and then create more as you grow to popularize and you’re not stuck with something.

Eilene: The first time I did pre-orders was a year ago. Actually a year ago was the first time I did a pre-order. And I was like, wow. People were even willing to wait a month for something. Which, if you do it early enough in the season, that works because then people are like, “Oh, well.” I won’t have it for a month, but I’m not going to be decorating until then anyway, so …

Julie: Right. Exactly. Yeah, so people are really willing. I would say though that as the business consultant that I am, that you could easily raise your prices a bit and not hurt … Like the fall crochet coasters that I’m looking at. And how long does it take you for each one, to create one?

Eilene: They take me about 20 minutes, 20 to 25 minutes.

Julie: So I’m looking at it. I’m going, okay. And when we’re doing craftwork and artwork, things like that, you can’t really go on an hourly rate or something like that. But I would say that you could easily bump that up to $10-$12 on that.

Eilene: No. I wondered about that because I have compared myself to Etsy. So now I’m actually charging $7 for one.

Julie: For one? Oh, definitely.

Eilene: So $14 a set.

Julie: Okay, so that works.

Eilene: Which I’m higher than anybody on Etsy right now. Thankfully, I have customers who pay that.

Julie: Okay, so I’m going to go back to the pillow. The one that is the plant pillow, how big is that and how long does that take?

Eilene: So that one, those take me about an hour to do.

Julie: You’re fast. Oh my lord.

Eilene: Well, that’s because I’ll do an assembly line. I mean, I will cut everything. If I was just to make that by itself and I didn’t have anything pre-cut or anything, it’d probably take me an hour and a half to get one of those.

Eilene: And I work with women all the time and as women, we tend to undervalue our time and the things that we produce. And the struggle is that clients claim your space and charge what something is worth. It’s just what we need to do more of. And it never fails. Every time I raise my prices, I always go, “nobody’s gonna want me.” But then I’ve never lost a client and I still find more. So it works out as long as you are doing the coolest job, which you are.

So I was really encouraged to take a look at that and then get over that part of you that feels like it’s too much or take a good look around and see what they’re charging in retail shops and then lower it from there. So you want to be lower than a retail shop, but definitely taking care of yourself.

Julie: This should be what we’re passionate about in our labor of love, but they also … The purpose is to make money. Again, it’s not necessarily about getting rich, but why do it? Otherwise, you’re just making gifts for everybody.

Eilene: Exactly,-

Julie: Which is fine. But if you don’t want to make gifts for your customers…

Eilene: Right. Well, and it was a few years ago when I started to do this. I was faced with … I felt like, “Well, I’m just a mom.” My skills are outdated, I’m not current.

And so I was like, well, I need to recreate myself. But also, I need to make an income because 12 years of cancer leaves you with a hefty, hefty bill, which we have been paying on that little baby for the entire time. Thankfully the hospital carries a large balance for us and we will keep paying on it. I just want to make a little change to go to the movies or to buy a pair of shoes for my kids. It was like, we really need to be thinking about our return and we need to be thinking about getting this hospital bill paid off and do I go back to school and then go back into a different profession or do I try and make this thing go?

And that’s where I thought, well, I want to do something that I am passionate about, something that I feel confident in. And it has been a lot of work. I have to network and connect and do all of that every day. Every single day.

Julie: And manage your social media and manage all the things that … Your orders because you have to manage those.

Eilene: I’m to the point where I’m not really sure how I’m going to manage everything because now I have more orders than I physically can do. So do I hire somebody? I have hired my daughters and they do work things for me like cutting out interfacing or cutting out a back of something. They do those things for me and I pay them a wage. But now it’s like what do I do?

Julie: I always find the mom networks and then you can have somebody working for you. It would definitely not be an hourly rate. You have to have some written systems out. I expect these to be cut square. I expect these to be cut so that you don’t have to clean up after.

So you set the standards. They understand what they are. I’m not sure because I’m not sure what your processes are, but I would think that cutting would be the big thing. And so if you could just get someone … I don’t know how big the town is, but I bet there’s a mom there that when the kids are in school,-

She would do some sort of piece work in front of the TV every night and let the kids play and she’d be talking to her husband, multitasking that doesn’t require a lot of thought. So that was her contribution. So you would actually be doing somebody a favor by hiring them out.

And one of the things on the business side that you have to think about is that what is bringing in the most money here and the thing that’s bringing in the most money is your design ability, your handling the customers, and then your putting things together. At some point in time, if you find a skilled person, you can also drop that out. But I would start small with some of those things that you’re having your daughters do and stuff like that. But I bet it wouldn’t be too hard for you do that. And then that would bring you up for everything else and definitely raise those prices.

Eilene: Yeah, I really want to venture out into also.

I offered patterns for years. I offered patterns for this other company. I can do that with my own designs, but I don’t know how to do the graphics very well. So I’m looking into just hiring someone to do that for me. I was reading on one of your blogs I think, where you said, “Hire out for things that you don’t know how to do.”

Eilene: Often times we can do something, but other times we’re gonna spend a vast amount of time doing something and losing money. When really I could just hand all of my pattern pieces and a format over to someone who could just set all of that up for me in a PDF form that’s downloadable. That could scan all of my pieces and I don’t have to do that. They could do it in a fraction of the time that it would take me.

Julie: Exactly. Yes, I think that’s smart..

Eilene: My husband has said, “Well, would you rather have 20 customers who will buy a pillow for $50? Or would you rather have 70 customers that would buy a pillow for 20?”

Julie: He’s so like my husband.

Eilene: I’m like, “Well yeah, I would like to have less customers who are paying more, because that’s less time and stress on my end.”

Julie: Exactly, yeah, especially in the craft business.

You never want to be under that situation where you’re taking something you love, and then it becomes a grind. There’s always parts of the work that are no fun. I imagine it’s like the accounting part is something that just about everybody hates in the business, but, yeah.

Eilene: It’s sitting down to do the book work and to read all of the updates and the patches and all that stuff. I normally have to have my husband translate it for me. Or this year I’m just handing it all over to my husband’s accountant and saying, “Here. Here’s this stuff. Here’s, you just take care of it for me.” Because that stuff not only bothers me, but I don’t feel like I’m real good at it. It’s not something, I’m sure I’m very capable of it. But I would rather have somebody who knows what they’re doing so I don’t get in trouble.

Plus, they can help you in figuring out ways where you can save money too.

Julie: Right. These are two basic things that I encourage every small business owner to know and to really absorb. One of them would be what structure of business do you have? Another is you should have a separate bank account for your business, so at the very least everything’s tracked in and out of that. You never put a personal charge on the business, or a business on the personal as much as you can.

Eilene: Right.

Julie: Then just understand what your tax deductions are. There’s just a few basic things and those aren’t that bad.

Eilene: Right.

Julie: Then from there it just becomes routine. Okay, I’m gonna sit down and I’m gonna do my deposits for the week, and figure out where I stand. Another thing I encourage is just learn how … There’s some free systems out there where you can run a P&L. You would see, oh, okay, I did make some money this last year.

Eilene: Right.

Julie: That’s really encouraging, and then it’s gratifying to know. Or you could kinda take stock and see how you would stand.

Eilene: I know. Sometimes I’m scared to do that, because then I don’t want to say, “Oh gosh, I didn’t make anything.”

“I thought made something. I worked my guts out, and this is the bottom line?” But then my husband says, “But remember you are deducting … Your goal is to have that bottom line be the smallest amount you can as far as tax purposes go. If you can deduct and you can be efficient in the things that are legal and that you should be utilizing …”

Julie: As long as you’re paying yourself. As long as you’re getting something out of it.

Eilene: Right.

Julie: It doesn’t have to be profit. You can take it out of wages or whatever. But yes, that’s the way you want to go, definitely. But I like the idea though of taking stock of it monthly. So that you can say, okay, my costs of this, or it’s costing me too much to put this product out. I need to revamp something. So that you can all along the way instead of being shocked to see at the year and going, oh my God, what just happened? You’re just crossing your fingers and hoping that it works out.

Julie: Buy yeah, I think it’s a struggle for creative … because by nature we want to be working on the better part of the business, the part we’re passionate about. That’s instrumental with the back of the house, but yeah. Well, that’s good that you got a plan.

Eilene: Well, I hope I have a plan. This is my first, I would say, big legitimate type of year. I don’t know how things are gonna land at the end of the year. I’m hoping that it’s good. A lot of really wonderful women that you highlighted and there are obviously many more women on Instagram who have way more followers than I do. And who have been doing this for years. What made you reach out to me?

Julie: Well, a diversity of businesses and I like your stuff. So a lot of it is just personally, I like what this person’s doing and I like what they write. I like the connection. We’re looking for people who aren’t just about big followers, but connecting with their community. We’re looking for authentic type people.

Eilene: Oh, great. Thank you. That has definitely been one of my goals when I started this was I truly wanted to be intentional, and I wanted to make connections with people. I think I really needed that. Coming out of some of the challenges that we did I felt pretty lost in myself. I needed to find other like-minded women and other women who …

So I wanted to have those connections with other women. I wanted to be able to talk with other business and other people on Instagram, and felt like they were my friend. Or people that I write ask a question. Or we could springboard ideas off of each other.

Julie: That’s cool that you found that, yeah.

Eilene: Yeah, I really have. I have found … I will say this, the industry in which I am in, I was a little surprised. I was expecting to find a lot of older women who were just grandmas, super kind, and I found that this is a very, very competitive industry. That was not always the case. There is a lot of competition in this industry out there at trade shows and other markets. But not on Instagram, at least not with the people that I have associated with. The people that I have associated with, and maybe it’s just because that’s what I was looking for, are very encouraging and are so supportive.

I was so surprised to find that. That there would be other women makers who would be cheering me on instead of saying, “Oh, don’t buy her product.” Or, “Oh, let me copy her.” I have not found that, at least not so far, so I’ve been very, very lucky in that way.

Julie: I think in some ways there’s a shift to more collaboration rather than competition.

Because there’s room for us all. It feels like when I was younger I felt that it was more competition based. It’s like you almost got that sense that people would pull you down rather than help lift you up and move you forward if they sensed that you were even a little bit in the market, in the same market area. But I run into it every now and then, that where it’s like, “Okay, you do that? I do that. We can’t be friends.” It’s like, “Seriously?”

Wait a minute, do we even go after the same demographic? Do we even … There’s room for everybody. I mean there is. I mean it’s kinda like the best survive too. So it’s not to say there’s no competition because that’s just business, but it’s-

Eilene: Yeah. I don’t know that there is really a truly original idea out there. We’re so influenced by what we see.

Julie: Exactly, yeah.

Eilene: It might drive us to think of something a little differently, but we’re influenced by the color of the year.

Julie: Exactly.

Eilene: We’re influenced by a farmhouse. We’re influenced by what’s popular, what style of writing is popular right now, all of that. I was actually afraid to put my things on Instagram to start with. Because years when I had a pattern company I had designed a pattern, and then a company in China took that pattern and they made it into a finished product. They were selling the finished product for less than I was selling the pattern for.

For some weird reason, I don’t know why, if they did this intentionally. But they sent me the brochure of that product finished to my house. I thought, well, I don’t this is coincidence that they’re sending this to me, but I contacted a lawyer, and writing a letter. I didn’t have the kind of the money to fight that situation.

Julie: No, no. You just…

Eilene: Yeah, I was very careful, but I have found it’s not that way. It has not been that way on Instagram. Yes, people do copy. There definitely is that. And makers will bring that to the attention a lot of times and say, “This person is copying me,” and it feels really crumby. I don’t like it.

Julie: There’s not a lot you can do about it. I’m just gonna keep on doing what do. I have no control over that person and their integrity. I just have to do my stuff

Eilene: I’ve just been very impressed with the women that I have met through social media.

Julie: That’s great. Thanks so much for talking. It was fun.

Eilene: Hey, thank you. I appreciate it.

It brings me joy to see women entrepreneurs stepping up and realizing their value and translating it to their business. To all the business women out there, do not be afraid to step up and claim what is yours. We are deserving of the value that we put to ourselves. Let’s show Eilene some love on her IG @simplyeilene.

]]>https://myownbossinc.com/2019/02/15/eilene-johnson-finds-a-way-to-take-a-busy-life-and-add-a-business/feed/0158A Chocolate Disaster Spurred Shannon to a Brilliant Inventionhttps://myownbossinc.com/2019/02/15/a-chocolate-disaster-spurred-shannon-to-a-brilliant-invention/
https://myownbossinc.com/2019/02/15/a-chocolate-disaster-spurred-shannon-to-a-brilliant-invention/#respondFri, 15 Feb 2019 19:03:05 +0000https://myownbossinc.com/?p=155Each women entrepreneur that I meet in this project has their own unique creation story. It’s amazing to me how they come up with things! Take Shannon Brown, entrepreneur and the inventor of Better Batter Bowl, who decided to step up and single-handedly find a solution to a very common problem with cooking. I’m actually […]

]]>Each women entrepreneur that I meet in this project has their own unique creation story. It’s amazing to me how they come up with things! Take Shannon Brown, entrepreneur and the inventor of Better Batter Bowl, who decided to step up and single-handedly find a solution to a very common problem with cooking. I’m actually in awe of Shannon…that she had the tenacity to take her invention and fly over every hurdle put in her way to see her product to the market. And it’s been picked up by ‘As Seen on TV’…how cool is that? Listen to the full story or read down below our awesome chat.

Julie: Tell me a little bit about yourself. I read your bio so I know kind of how things happened, but I love the story. You were a nail technician?

Shannon: Yes, I was a nail technician for close to 20 years. Loved it and worked many, many hours doing that because I loved it so much. And that caused me to have carpal tunnel in my hands and all that that goes along with the same motions over and over again. My husband actually told me that I needed to retire so I didn’t have to have surgery, so I retired from doing nails. I was staying at home with the kids for a little while, and I cook all the time. That’s my passion. I love baking and cooking with the kids, and they get involved, and it’s a lot of fun. Well, the grip in my hands was just very, very weak from doing the nails for so many years, and I just use a mixing bowl all the time, and one day I had had it. I had a whole batch of brownies in a mixing bowl and it hit the ground, made this huge mess.

Julie: It’s like chocolate on the floor, that’s the worst.

Shannon: Yes, it was everywhere. It was splattered all over me, the cabinet. I thought, “Oh.”

Julie: Right, and then the stickiness. I hate sticky kitchen floors and trying to get it cleaned. I just feel your pain on that one, plus losing chocolate. It’s horrible.

Shannon: Yes, of course. That’s tragic alone.

Julie: Okay. Did you hold it together in front of the children?

Shannon: Well, a little bit, yeah. I will have to say, I thought, “This is so ridiculous.” We cleaned up our mess and all that and took a little breather and just thought-

Julie: There’s that frustration that your body’s not doing what it’s always done for you before. That’s hard when we realize that we can’t do things that we have to do, but even because of an injury or age or something like that and, all of a sudden, you’re losing something that’s just been inherent in your ability to perform tasks.

Shannon: Yeah, and it was so simple, something so simple that we use every single day. I just thought, “This is so crazy.” Yeah. I had my mad mommy face on and I was like, “Okay. There has got to be something online. With all the resources, there’s got to be something that I can hang on to, some kind of bowl that I can hang on to.” A lot of them had little handles on the side, little tiny lips on the top, but you have to squeeze them, you have to hang on to them. Most of them with handles are made with heavy metal and most of them are glass or heavy metal or something like that, and I thought, “Okay. That’s it. That’s it. I’ve got to make something that I can hang on to.”

>>> Quick break: If you are loving this article, I know you’ll want to get your hands on this awesome guide to business success.

And my husband was working out of town at the time, and so I thought, “Well, this is going to be my little project. I’m going to figure this out.” I got a regular mixing bowl and I blew up a balloon, and I thought, “Okay, this is the size I want it to be.” And I got out my paper mache’ and all my crafty stuff and I got my hand on it and I built the thing over my hand. I thought, “Okay. This way I don’t even have to hang on to it. It’s hanging on to me.” That is where I added a few features after, of course, the paper mache version. It was so funny because he came back, out of town, and I held it up and I said, “Look, a bowl I can hang on to.” He looked at me like, “What is your deal? Are you crazy? What happened while I was gone?”

Julie: When did he get on board with this? It’s funny because you would look at the paper mache’ bowl and it’s like, “Oh,” because I’ve seen a picture of it. It’s fabulous

Shannon: Yeah. Well, he saw it. He knew that I had an inventive mind. I always was trying to think of something to fix a problem, to fix a problem, and all this, but I never really made it.

Julie: Classic entrepreneur stuff right there.

Shannon: Right, always looking for a better way. Yeah. Then, whenever he saw it, and I was talking all the time, saying, “Okay, we’ve got to have it made out of this plastic so it’s shiny and pretty and it has to have this and it has to have that.” He was just like, “Okay, you do your thing and then show me whenever you have something to hold on to.”

Julie: Oh, that’s great! Yeah. I’m going to step back a little bit. So many people that have ideas, it stops right where you are right now. You made the paper mache model and, okay, now the real work begins. I have to go find the plastic. That sounds daunting. I’m going to have to Google and make phone calls, and then I’m going to have to find someone to make it, and then I’m going to have to … and they see this list of tasks. They’re not sure where to start, and then it’s a great idea that just goes nowhere. Number one, what made you do it and then how?

Shannon: Well, doing nails for so many years, I had talked to a bunch of my clients, and a lot of them loved to cook and do things like that. And it was so funny how, I don’t know, whenever you’re coming up with an idea, you think back in your life about all the times that little hints had been dropped in your path. All my clients had said, “Oh, I hate hanging on to the mixing bowls,” or “Last night, I had my husband do this,” or something, and all that came back to me, and I thought, “You know what? I’m not the only human on this planet that is dropping things in the kitchen and that has this problem.” Then I thought, “It’s up to me. I’ve got to do something about it. I’ve got to fix this.” That is where I just made the decision I’m not going to give up on this. It might take me 10 years, who knows, but I’m not going to give up on it.

That’s where I looked for a computer designer, because, from this little paper mache thing, you couldn’t really do much, so I found a computer designer to actually put it on a computer screen. And I had measured everything with my hand and the width and the height, just got the whole project put together. And he made it into this 3D model on the computer screen. And we’re so fortunate now to have these 3D printers, and so that was my first step was I had a 3D print made of the mixing bowl.

Julie: How did you find the computer designer? Yeah.

Shannon: Yeah, that was a process. I was living in Nevada at the time, and I searched all overlooking for somebody. I’m going to age myself a little, date myself here a little bit, but they have all these young kids that know all this stuff about computers and I know nothing, and so I didn’t even know who I was looking for, what I was looking for. And this website popped up, whenever I was doing my Google search, and it said that there was this designer in Ogden, Utah. And being from Utah, we’d only moved to Nevada for about a year, but being from Utah, I knew that was a five or six hour drive away from where I was living. I thought, “You know what? I’m just going to jump in the car and go meet with this guy.”

Shannon: Yeah, absolutely. I went up there and he was amazing. Yeah, he was amazing. He was just like, “Oh, wow. This is actually pretty cool.” And so we got it all designed and everything and, yeah, that’s how I found him, just by luck. And-

Julie: Well, no, it’s the tenacity though. Don’t underplay that because you didn’t give up. So many people would’ve, again, given up at that stage. And you drove seven hours to meet him and most people would say, “I’m busy. I can’t …” Okay. Now we’ll move forward to the next part, and that was you found your computer designer. And then how did you find the 3D printer?

Shannon: Okay. Same thing, good old Google.

Julie: Same thing? All right. Good. That’s wonderful. Google is just amazing. Google’s your best friend. I love Google.

Shannon: Yeah, absolutely. And if you don’t like the answer you find, you just keep searching and you’ll find something totally different.

Julie: Go to page two. Page two works. Find new search words. It’s the best tool. Okay. And then you were able to come up with the prototype from there?

Shannon: Uh-huh, yes. I found a 3D printer. He did it right there in Las Vegas, so it was very close to where I was living, and we put together the 3D print, and it was a difficult model just because of the design and how everything was cut and formed and everything. He printed out a version, and it’s an amazing process, how the 3D printer works.

Julie: It sounds like the hard part’s over, but I know it’s just beginning. You got that and then now you need it manufactured, so you have to find a manufacturer. And I saw that it’s very cool and you rock, you’re making it in the USA because we know right off the bat that you’re probably paying a little bit more to have it made here.

Shannon: Yeah, absolutely. We found an amazing manufacturer, and I just searched all over. I had called and visited with manufactures all over the country. There are tons of plastic injection molders. I don’t know. It’s all a personal thing whenever you’re talking with someone and it either clicks or it doesn’t. You can just tell. And so I found somebody that I felt so comfortable talking to and working with, and it just so happened that he was 20 minutes out of St. George, so it was fantastic that not only are we making it in the USA, we’re making it just right here locally.

Julie: That’s great.

Shannon: Absolutely, and so he took on this project

Julie: Right. Okay. Now you’re manufacturing and you’ve got the product. Again, I’m just going to take and have you tell everybody that the whole process, start to finish. What next? You’ve got to take it to market. How did you prepare for that? Marketing announcements, what were the steps there?

Shannon: Okay. What we did first, we had quite a few made to start with, not a ton, but some just to have on hand so that we could start promotions, give them out to friends and family and stuff and getting the word out. And then I released a press release. I found a good, reputable company and wrote up a press release. We released that and immediately started getting attention from different, of course, trade shows and stuff like that really wanted to push the product and also a company out of Florida, the As Seen on TV group. Yeah, and he was one of the original sharks who was in the first 150 episodes of Shark Tank and it was just exciting to get to work with his team.

Julie: Great. He contacted you?

Shannon: Yes.

Julie: I was wondering how that connection was made. They go to trade shows and look at the products and then-

Shannon: Well, through that press release, whenever the press release was released, it went out to all the business journals across the country and that’s where he picked it up. Yeah, and he just wanted to help us get going. It’s not like Shark Tank. We didn’t do an investment and all that. He’s using his expertise to help us film a commercial and then announce the project and then he’s going to do marketing as well with it.

Julie: Okay. That’s still happening? You’ve been on As Seen on TV?

Shannon: It is. It is currently. Yes. That’s happening. I released the commercial, actually, at the beginning of September. It’s going to go city by city nationwide. It started in Dallas, so we’re rolling it out nationwide through the holidays.

Julie: What’s been the hardest part for you, as far as building the business side?

Shannon: I would say probably helping people understand how to use a simple mixing bowl all over again. It’s interesting how many people … they’ll look at it and they’re like, “Oh, yeah, that’s a pretty bowl,” but they don’t see that you slide your hand underneath the bottom of it and within the palm of your hand and it’s a totally different way to use a bowl. Everybody grabs it by the side, by the edge, or something. And so that’s actually been really amazing is when you hand to someone, they don’t really … as soon as they slide their hand in there, it’s just like a light bulb comes on. It’s like, “Oh, this is amazing. Holy cow, I get it.” That’s been a challenge is we’re teaching and helping people understand, hey, there is a better way. Yeah, and just also is just getting it to the right markets. That’s been one of the key things is you’ve got to stay in the cooking market and people who love to cook

Julie: Like they say, stay in your lane, yeah. Yeah. How about setting up systems for your business, say, on the back of the house, as you call it? Was that something you’d done before? Did you have experience in business? But things like the checking account, the bookkeeping, all that back of the house stuff, how did that go for you?

Shannon: Right. It’s going. We are just learning as we go and I think anything that you’re learning for the first time, you’re going to have a few bumps in the road and you’re going to figure it out as you go. But, yes, I did work with a financial services company in my life, so I did have a little bit of knowledge on doing the books and stuff like that. But, really, yeah, it’s just kind of, if you know how to balance your checkbook, you’ll be all right pretty much. You learn as you go.

Julie: Right. Make sure that you have the right company structure. You would want, I would guess, a corporation, an S or a C corp – all those things. Yeah, getting the business in place is super important.

Shannon: And we’re very fortunate as well. We do have a small business development company here in St. George. They partner along with the college, and they will help you and that’s who helped us and walked us through setting up all of the business design and how to set up the structure.

Julie: I love things like that, groups like that that help small business owners. I think that’s wonderful. And I think that you were sharp enough to take advantage of that, because that’s huge. You’ve got a lot of moving parts with your company, and you’re focused on production and the invention and all that stuff, which is just fabulous, and that’s the stuff that keeps you moving day to day. And that back of the house, you tend to not think about until, “Oh, my gosh. I’ve got a tax return due. What am I? Where do I get …” You know what I mean? It’s good that you had the foresight to take care of it and handle all that stuff and that there’s a group available. I think that’s fantastic.

Shannon: And then another very important part with the whole invention is we had to get our patent. Yeah. The patent process is very, very time-consuming, just because it takes a few years to get it all issued and everything. And so we had an amazing attorney file everything for us. Let’s see. It’s been probably two and a half, almost three years ago that we actually filed for our patents, and I’m so excited to say, in August, we got our international patent granted and, in September, we got our US patent granted.

Julie: That’s great. I’m trying to think of who I know with patents. That’s just amazing. But it is so unique and that’s one of the things that you have to prove, that it’s something totally unique, and yours is. It seems like a slam dunk, but you still have to go through all the processes. That’s great. Yeah. As far as the entrepreneur journey, you’ve got something totally awesome and you have this belief in it. Because when you tell people or don’t tell people … what kept you going in the belief in your project? Do you see what I’m getting at?

Because there’s a lot of moments … it’s an alone journey that we take as entrepreneurs and we strongly believe in what we’re doing and everybody else is stepping back, goes, “Yeah, okay. You go, girl!” They’re saying that, but it’s like I don’t know, because it is, you’re slamming against that wall over and over again until you find an opening, as you did with your computer designer, and then you slammed against another wall till you got the plastic printer, and then another wall, and then taking it to market. And what kept you going?

Shannon: I’ll probably get emotional. What has kept me going this whole time is my husband works really hard to give us a great life and I want to do something so great for our family. I don’t know. There’s just been a lot of challenges with his family, just different things through life. We meet people, and there’s just a sick feeling in my gut that, whenever I see someone, whether it’s family or friends or somebody I don’t even know, I always look at them and I think, “Oh, I wish I could do something. I wish I could help them. I wish I could, whether financially or time-wise or whatever, I wish I could do something.” That has always been just that burning feeling in my gut, like, you know what, I never, ever, in my life, want to have to look at somebody and say, “I wish I could do something for them, but I can’t.” And so I want to be able to give such a great life to people that I meet, to my family, that it just drives me every day.

And I think there is just so many people that just lay around and want things handed to them, and I just think that, if we could instill any sort of drive into the kids today and show them, you know what, if you work really hard and you persevere and you go for it, no matter what your idea is … I’m not educated and lots of degrees and all this kind of stuff, but you know what, I want my kids to see that, you know what, she worked bang hard and this is what’s happened.

Julie: Yeah, you’ve got to lead by example right there already, just to see that.

Shannon: Yeah, and it all starts at home. It starts with the kids. It starts with the family. And if you just stick it out, it’ll work. You just got to keep going.

>>> Quick break: If you are loving this article, I know you’ll want to get your hands on this awesome guide to business success.

Julie: I was looking at your Instagram and your Facebook. You’ve got some beautiful stuff in the pictures and things, but I was thinking, because we talked a little bit at the market in St. George, and it struck me how beautifully spoken you are and how enthusiastic and vivacious, and you’re a great storyteller, and you’re just so easy to interact with. If you don’t mind a suggestion, I would take that Instagram and Facebook and splash your name on there so that it’s your story. And people connect with the story, and the story of how you created this is awesome because who wouldn’t want to make a new bowl based on a spilled chocolate? It’s humorous, it’s touching, what you’re doing, and then the tenacity. That’s the human connection that will get more people. And followers don’t necessarily translate into sales, but it gets you loyalty, it gets you. Same with Facebook.

If you were to put your face on that and your name with that, so instead of, I think it’s Better Creations as the holder on the Better Batter Bowl, you put your name, Shannon Brown. And then you’ve got a few pictures of you – third or fourth, have you with the bowl, and then tell a little more of the story to get that connection. And I guarantee you, it’s a slow growth, but you’ll definitely see a difference in that once you put yourself on it. Because, right now, you look like you could be the corporation, and we want to know, and we want to know that story. And so you think, “Okay, maybe I told my story a few weeks ago back 60 pictures in the Instagram feed,” but tell it again later because you’ve got people joining you. They want to see that story. Because the story is fabulous and that’s how we connect is through our stories. Anyway, just a thought.

Shannon: I will think about it. Yeah. No, that’s great. I love feedback.

Julie: Yeah, yeah. I’m so excited and I love seeing what you’ve done and the tenacity with which you did it. And then I’m so excited getting through this. I know I’m buying one and I hope my friends aren’t listening. Well, I hope they are, but I hope they’re not, because that’s what they’re getting for Christmas.

Shannon: Oh, I love it.

Julie: Thank you so much for taking the time to talk today.

Shannon: Well, thank you so much for the opportunity. It was a pleasure meeting you.

It was surreal meeting an innovator and inventor who followed through on her idea, all why being a mum! To be able to see the gap in the market and find your own solutions is not an easy task, yet she is doing an amazing job at keeping everything together – her family life and business. Let’s show Shannon some love on her IG account@betterbatterbowl.

]]>https://myownbossinc.com/2019/02/15/a-chocolate-disaster-spurred-shannon-to-a-brilliant-invention/feed/0155Purveyor of Little Fat Menhttps://myownbossinc.com/2019/02/15/purveyor-of-little-fat-men/
https://myownbossinc.com/2019/02/15/purveyor-of-little-fat-men/#respondFri, 15 Feb 2019 18:59:21 +0000https://myownbossinc.com/?p=152Recently, I was at a wonderful Saturday Market at the Tuacahn Center for the Arts in Utah. I was so excited to find a collection of hand-carved Santa’s there. And you’d know why if you stopped by my house anytime before Christmas. That’s right… I lurve Santas! And the amazing Santa’s I found at Tuacahn […]

]]>Recently, I was at a wonderful Saturday Market at the Tuacahn Center for the Arts in Utah. I was so excited to find a collection of hand-carved Santa’s there. And you’d know why if you stopped by my house anytime before Christmas. That’s right… I lurve Santas! And the amazing Santa’s I found at Tuacahn were carved by Kathy Ravenberg, whose creations are collected by people around the world. Kathy is as warm and kind as the chubby little man she carves. She shared her story with me, about how a tragic event turned into a lesson in kindness. Listen to our podcast on the links below or you can read the summary of my chat with this amazing lady boss below!

Julie: Hi. I’m here today with Kathy Ravenberg, who has this fantastic place at the Saturday market in St. George, Utah, and we’re going to ask her a few questions about her business. And they’re just fabulous carved Santas.

Kathy: Hi!

Julie: How are you?

Kathy: I do all the carving and painting, you’re welcome to…

Julie: So fabulous.. okay, so what drove you to wood carving?

Kathy: Well, I majored in art in college.

Julie: Where did you go?

Kathy: Weber State University in Ogden. And I have five kids so…

Julie: That’s a job!

Kathy: I had a friend that was doing carving, and they just did a lot of Santa Clauses and that stuff, and I though, “oh I just love Christmas.” And I love Christmas because of my past, you can read that story on the back of my card.

Julie: Why don’t you tell us a little outline of it here.

Kathy: Well, when I was fifteen, my dad had a small business – he had a bakery in Ogden. It was the 8th of December in 1962. I was working there and a man came in, we were just closing up, just cleaning counters and stuff, a man came in with a gun and held me up. And I was only 15 so my dad had told me you give them what they want, and I did. I made it to the cash register and I gave him the money, and then I went back, my dad was in the back making Christmas cookies, and I told him, we’ve just been held up and he says “Oh you’re joking…” and then I just lost it. I just fell apart.

Julie: Fifteen…

Kathy: And he says “Are you hurt?” And I said “No, but he had a gun.” and he says “well you stay here, I’m going to go get the car and take you home.” He parked down the street always because there was only a couple parking places for customers. So he went out to get the car, the man was still out there. And knocked him down and shot him three times. Some people helped him back in to the shop, but he was wounded really badly, and through a series of miracles, he did recover. But the community was so good to us and did such thoughtful things, not expensive things but very thoughtful things. So I learned at that age that Santa Clauses comes in all shapes and sizes.

Julie: You’re making me cry. Wow.

Kathy: And so I just love Santa Claus, because he’s so good to people. And so I started carving

Julie: It’s universal for people too, because they’re so drawn to Santa, he’s the kind, loving man.

Kathy: Exactly. So that’s why I like Santa Claus.

Julie: Thank you for sharing that story, I didn’t mean to make you remember something that’s so difficult.

So you started carving when your kids were little?

Kathy: Yeah they were. They were in school by then, and I started carving them, and then I got pretty good, people wanted to buy them and so I just kept carving Santa Clauses.

Julie: So how do you market, or where do you…

Kathy: I have a little Etsy store, and I do this market two or three times a year, and then I have repeat clientele.

Julie: Of course.

Kathy: You know, who maybe get one a year.

Julie: Oh I can see that, I’ve been collecting Santa’s, I was so drawn by them here.

Kathy: So that’s enough to keep me busy. I send them all over the United States, they’re in private collections all over. I did license them for a couple years, and they reproduced them and sold them nation-wide for a couple years. But now I just do original work, I sent one to the UK not too long ago, and I just sent one yesterday to Portland and I sent them to Florida… I sent them all over.

Julie: How do you – it’s creative work – so what kind of gets you going or gets you…

Kathy: Well a lot of the wood is just natural wood and so you have to design the Santa Clause around the wood.

Julie: Right, yeah, I see that.

Kathy: I think that’s really fun to do, to pick out what is there and then design around it. You know, I just, started-

Julie: Do you have a schedule? Or do you get up and decide “I’m gonna carve for an hour or two each day” or do just do it as-

Kathy: I do it as I have time, but usually it’s a couple hours a day.

Julie: What I love about being an entrepreneur is that we can work in our sweats.

Kathy: Mm-hmm, and I’ll carve 3-4 pieces out in my shop, I have an outside shop. Then I’ll bring them inside to my studio where I paint them. So I’ll paint 3-4 at a time. It’s more efficient.

Julie: Efficient, of course, it’s always good to find the most efficient ways to work. Okay, I’m going to close with two questions. What is the hardest thing for you about your business as far as the organization, marketing-

Kathy: The paperwork; I’m so right brain I don’t have any left brain, and it’s hard for me to do online stuff because I’m not computer savvy

Julie: Right.

Kathy: But I do the Etsy store, and I can handle a little bit.

Julie: Okay so what’s the favorite thing, like what just bring you the greatest joy?

Kathy: When people smile when they walk by. It makes people happy. It’s great.

There is always so much more to a business than meets the eye –Kathy’s story is proof of that. I so love that I get to talk to all these amazing women entrepreneurs and learn so much by listening to their inspirational stories.

]]>https://myownbossinc.com/2019/02/15/purveyor-of-little-fat-men/feed/0152Emotional Connections Drive Leila Breton’s Custom Bridal and Red Carpet Businesshttps://myownbossinc.com/2019/02/15/emotional-connections-drive-leila-bretons-custom-bridal-and-red-carpet-business/
https://myownbossinc.com/2019/02/15/emotional-connections-drive-leila-bretons-custom-bridal-and-red-carpet-business/#respondFri, 15 Feb 2019 18:56:09 +0000https://myownbossinc.com/?p=149I think for any of us who’ve ever gotten ready for a fancy event, we know just how important that dress is. And for a wedding? It’s got to be the ONE. So add the pressure of picking the right dress to the stress of wedding preparations…whew! ‘Cause I mean, it’s your one shot to […]

]]>I think for any of us who’ve ever gotten ready for a fancy event, we know just how important that dress is. And for a wedding? It’s got to be the ONE. So add the pressure of picking the right dress to the stress of wedding preparations…whew! ‘Cause I mean, it’s your one shot to get that wedding you’ve always dreamed of. That’s the reason why I’m in such awe with Leila Breton, owner of Curvy Custom Bride, and how she keeps her cool while dealing with anxious brides. And how her warmth and wisdom helps give them calm as they enter their new life. Listen to our fun and empowering podcast on the links below or you can read the summary of my chat with this amazing lady boss below!

Julie: I’ve been enamored of your Instagram page and your Facebook and you’ve just put together a really, it’s a beautiful site. What I think was really cool is … Everybody go to this Instagram page, who’s listening, Curvy Custom Bride. And it’s as it sounds but we’ll put it all in hashtags for the posting. What I love what you did with that series of four pictures, of your latest, with the gold dress?

Leila: Oh, I know. I love those.

Julie: With that you … And you just put it up into the four parts and it’s just lovely the way it comes across on the page.

Leila: Thank you. I actually saw that … I’ve seen that in other people’s accounts for years. And I was actually not one … So, this is how you can tell I’m 41. When Instagram started, I was 100% behind Twitter. I remember friends of mine, sewing friends of mine because that’s all I did on Twitter was sewing things. So, they were like, oh, my God, you have to check out Instagram. And I was like, you know what? No, I don’t. I was so like, get off my lawn about Instagram and now I absolutely adore it and embrace it. So, over the years I’ve actually seen that where they take … I use an app. I use 9square. So you can actually pick how many squares you want your photo to be spread into.

Then you can post them from the app and it’s beautiful. It just gives that sort of like larger than life kind of thing. And then, also, from a business standpoint, marketing standpoint, I realized that it brings people to your profile page and then maybe they get to know you a little bit better. And then maybe you get to connect a little bit deeper and maybe … For me, social media is all about connection and meeting people and it’s finding what we have in common more than business. I’ve only been an official, official business for not very long. So, it’s really nice to just connect with people and remind myself that that’s what it’s about. And less about, let me show you my great products. But those were definitely, that Cuban shoot, it’s so dear to my heart. So, I was like, I have to make things really good.

>>> Quick break: If you are loving this article, I know you’ll want to get your hands on this awesome guide to business success:

Julie: It’s a wonderful thing and you’ve got a willingness. Have you heard … There’s a, I just discovered this, and this is, you can teach an old dog new tricks, it’s … Oh, what’s it called? It’s an app, it’s not new, it’s new to me, where you can take your video that’s up to a minute and you can cut it into four sections. So you can make your i-D story one minute instead of just 15 seconds. So that shoot that you did? The Cuban shoot? Is that what it’s called? The Cuban shoot?

Leila: I think they started calling it Havana Nights.

Julie: Havana Nights. Okay. You can take a minute of that and put that into your IG stories.

Leila: I work in a very high-stress, high-pressure kind of field which is bridal, right? And so I’ve found over the years, ways to make it not so stressful. So, I have this thing in my studio, we don’t do panic, we do sense of urgency.

And I love it too. And I love sharing it with people because it’s actually a Jenny Beavan quote and Jenny Beavan is a costume designer. She’s a British costume designer who’s known for movies like Gosford Park, Howards End. Anything that’s like silk, and gowns, and theme-wear, and period, and corsets. And then, she got hired to do the costumes for the Mad Max re-make. The Mad Max: Fury Road. So she won an award for it, of course, because she’s Jenny Beavan. She’s amazing, she’s one of my favorites.

She was interviewed by Vanity Fair and Vanity Fair asked her, was there any point, with this history that you have of having period pieces, that’s what you’re focused on, that’s what you’re so good at, that’s your legacy, and all of a sudden, you’re making costumes out of trash. Was there any point when you thought to yourself, I am in way over my head? So Jenny Beavan tells this story that a long time ago a customer friend of hers told her, we don’t do panic, we do sense of urgency. I don’t know who that costumer was but whatever it is, now it’s my Jenny Beavan quote that I, that’s how-

Julie: That’s perfect. Yeah.

Leila: Yeah. It is. So I’ve found different ways to be able to re-direct panic and re-direct it into a sense of urgency and saying, okay, this still needs to get done. I can either save my mental health by re-framing it or I can just dive into the panic. So one of the things that I’ve done over the years is imagine myself as a YouTuber. And creating these ridiculous shows in my head and saying, oh, my God, this would make such a great episode on my YouTube channel. Which I don’t have. But I think it would be hilarious.

Julie: Yeah. How many projects do you have going at once? Because it’s custom work and that’s-

Leila: Yeah. It depends. It depends on a lot of things. It depends on the individual. Sometimes people want to know a year in advance who they’re working with. Most people do. Some people figure out that their dress doesn’t fit at the last minute. So, I have a variety of those. Sometimes I get people coming in … What’s that?

Julie: I said, I saw some testimonials, really good ones, of you rescuing them at the last minute

Leila: I know. And the thing is the rescue, I feel bad for a lot of brides because I’ve found when I wait until the last minute or when I find out at the last minute that there’s better, than you tend to … Everything is … The stress is more palpable than if you were to do it earlier on in the process. But, there’s a lot of circumstances where a bride doesn’t actually know that their dress could fit better. Then they come in and they’re like, yeah, I just … I tried it on a couple months ago and it fit. And now it doesn’t fit and now I’m panicking. So there’s a little bit of that.

So, how many projects do I have right now? I just handed out three dresses on Friday. So, I had people getting married this weekend. I was watching their Instagram feeds and crying because it’s just so sweet. It’s so sweet. And I get really close to most of my brides. It’s such an intimate setting, it’s just such an intimate thing and most people-

Julie: I was saying, for women, it’s our bodies. And you’re taking care of them. And none of us are perfect. Most of us, 99%, I’m sure and a number, are self-conscious about it.

Leila: It feels, one of my long-term goals is feeling based. I do have other tangible goals, but feelings based, I want to be able to go to bed at night feeling good about the work that I do. I don’t want to go to bed saying, I wish I would have done this a different way. Of course I do because I’m creative, I’m an artist. So, you’re never done. You’re constantly thinking, oh, but I could do one more tweak. But I just need two more weeks to sit and stare and wonder what I should do.

I think a lot of it is, it’s about the dress. It’s about fashion, it’s about showing up. But it’s also about showing up the way that you are instead of being told that you should show up in the dress that makes you look like something and somebody else that you’re not.

And I think that that’s what draws the people that I’m going to connect with naturally. They’re people that want this costume because dresses are costumes. Clothes are costumes. Everyday clothes, everything that we wear is a costume. So when you get married, you want to wear, you have certain ideas about what is going to make you feel like you’re getting married. There’s ritual to that. And there’s a ritual to having your dress fit and having your … Going into the dress shop and picking out the dress and finding the one. So, in custom it’s a little bit different. Because they … The first meeting that I have with a custom bride is an hour and a half. So, it’s an hour and a half of sitting and getting to know each other and talking and listening to what, just listening. Half of what I do in an hour and a half is listen. Then, they tell me what they like, what they don’t like, their frustrations. Everything comes out.

Then, we get to see if we’re going to be a good match. Because it’s usually a year. When people … A year, year and a half, sometimes, when people want to know who’s doing their dress. So, it’s a lot more than the dress. But, what I keep saying is, it’s about the dress but it’s not about the dress. But it’s about the dress but it’s just not about the dress.

Julie: It’s a reflection of their dreams and hopes of that one special day and I’m looking … I’m sitting here, I’ve got tears in my eyes looking at your Instagram page.

It’s so beautiful and you can see, the thing about it, for anybody listening, is that I can see the personalities of the women that you’re designing dresses for, just totally pops out through the dress.

It is. You’ve got some that are sort of retro. You’ve got some that are super edgy. How on earth would they ever find a dress to go with their personalities at a regular store? They wouldn’t. The one in the beautiful sapphire Grecian gown, and there’s … I mean, fabulous. I want to fly you to the city and have you design my mother-of-the-bride’s dress.

Leila: Anytime. Anytime. I actually, I know … I have friends that own Airbnbs that I’ve been wanting to connect brides and custom clients with. Because I think it would be great. Fly in, get this cute Airbnb, have a beautiful package. Have like gift certificates to different places that I think are cool. Have what to do.

Julie: I think I need to have my future daughter-in-law check that out.Like I say, I’m getting a little teary-eyed looking at all these things. But, like I said, you’re capturing the personality of … It’s so evident that it’s not stock.

Leila: Yeah. It’s so interesting being in these first consultations with people because when they say, oh, my God, how did you know that that’s what I wanted? I’m like, I’ve been listening to you. I actually hear you. I actually hear you when you say, when somebody says that they kind of wanted something, you can tell, by how they’re saying it, that they really, really wanted it.

So then, I try to tell people that, especially for … The reason why I like doing big events, so, red carpet, gala, bridal, what I call wedding day fashion, right? The reason why I like doing those moments is because those are the moments when you show up. Those are the moments when you step into your you and you get to show who you are. The more you get to show who you are, then the less you’re worried about, my shirt comes down, it opens up, it moves over, it does this. And you’re not fidgeting the whole time. The more you, you can be.

I have this theory and I have many, many theories. My brides laugh and they know, and they appreciate the theories, I think. But, I have a lot of theories about human behavior when it comes to bridal, in particular. One of the things is that, as women, we settle. And we settle a lot. And my theory is that when you’re getting married, this is a great opportunity to stop settling. If you are heart-set on having a particular dress, or having it look a particular way, or really, really, really finally wanting it to fit so that you can actually show up and not fidget, this is the best time to do it.

So, I think, that as women, we settle for so much and so I’m trying, in my small little corner of the world, I’m trying to encourage women to stop settling for less than they deserve.

Julie: That’s great. And so it starts with the dress. I love it.

Leila: Exactly. And it’s because getting married is so charged, it’s so emotional, it’s so all of these things, then if we … One of the things that happens is, I just posted this to Instagram Stories because it irritates me to no end, that brides are called bridezillas because they have strong emotions.

Leila: What we need to do is actually get rid of that word entirely and stop judging people who are dealing with, I’m not going to say mental health issues, but with mental health. It’s so stressful. Stress is mental health. And we’re treating stress as if it were disposable and as if it were a joke. It’s the sort of thing that I want to be … It needs to be out of our vocabulary. We need to stop using that word for people that are trying to do all of this and have all of this weight on their shoulders. And still act like nothing’s going on.

Julie: As a business consultant, I see a lot with women who don’t charge enough. And they apologize about their rates or they discount. And it’s one of … It’s just been my mantra or the sword that I carry for women, is that you need to figure out what the right price is for your niche, charge your worth. Charge what you’re worth. There’s no point in this if we don’t … And then don’t apologize for it. The price is the price.

I love what you said. I know. It’s that acknowledgement, yes, it’s expensive, but damn, I’m worth it. And then they can make up their minds and it’s kind of like when someone decides I’m too expensive. And then they have to hire someone like me or me to totally clean up after someone who did a horrible job setting up their company or giving them bad advice and they end up paying for stuff that they shouldn’t have to pay. It’s kind of like, I feel bad for them, but it’s like, yeah, you should have paid a little more in the beginning and you wouldn’t have to fix it.

Leila: Right. Exactly. And that’s usually what happens, is that people are sold on the dress and they’re told, in the bridal shop, not everybody, but some do and they’ll say, they’ll give them a great discount or they’ll say, this dress is hot right now, why don’t you buy the sample, blah, blah, blah, blah, don’t worry, it can be altered. But they’re not told that the alterations can cost up to $800.00. So then they have this false sense of, well, I bought my dress for this much, my alterations will be less. Usually they’re about between $500.00 and $800.00.

So, I do get people who contact me through WeddingWire or Yelp and they’ll ask me what I charge. And then they’ll tell me, oh, it’s too much. I’ll tell them, I’ll try to couch it in, I don’t have you and your dress right in front of me so this is just an estimate. If you’d like to come in for a free consultation, by all means, and then I can give you an actual estimate. This is just general without knowing what your dress looks like on you. And I get people that say, I only paid this much for it, I only planned on paying this much for alterations. Now I’ve realized, well, that’s just not my client.

My client … You can tell who my client is by how they talk about their dress, how they talk about how they want to feel and so it’s easier now to say, definitely, good luck finding an alterations person, let me know if you need help in the future.

Julie: What else have you done? Is that that doesn’t work either.

Leila: No, it doesn’t. Yeah, what have you been doing the last seven years? I’ve been a parent, a stay-at-home parent and I’ve been home-schooling my kids.

Julie: Which, yeah, is awesome. But they’re going, yeah, so?

Leila: I know. So then I started, I was living, then, at that point, I was living here in Indianapolis, in Indiana. And I was waiting tables which I had never done before. And that was a whole thing. Then I got a job with, I just started getting jobs with different designers in town. Then I started realizing what kind of sewing I liked. Because I had started sewing when my daughter was born. So that was almost 12 years ago.

Julie: To be self-taught to the point where you can go get a job and support your kids that way. That’s incredible.

Leila: You know, it feels kind of nuts. That my crazy job-work background of never having an office job, and working in these random things that would still pay all of my bills and everything, it’s like, you know, my hands, my ideas, my execution, is paying my bills. It is pretty amazing, I’m pretty amazed at it, again. Stepping away from myself and looking at it from an outsider’s point of view, I’m proud of myself. I’m proud of how much I’ve been able to accomplish.

I remember at some of these interviews with other designers, being asked, where did you train? And my training was YouTube and online tutorials. Which, you know, is so true. I’d be like, oh, I wonder how you do a welt pocket. Okay. Welt pocket how-to. Google, please.

Julie: That’s so cool.

Leila: That’s how I became friends with a lot of people online because I would follow their tutorials or I would follow their blogs and then, and we’re still friends, 12 years later. All of that was just trying to learn how to do things and having this challenge accepted mentality. I would hear people saying on Twitter, like, oh my God, I’m so nervous to work with knits. I’m like, oh, I haven’t worked with knits yet. Let me try it.

Julie: I just want to be able to put myself in your hands and develop a friendship as we went and then come out with this wonderful gown that knocks it out of the park and just go, yeah.

Leila: I think that’s what the friendship is for. So that somebody … Because I keep telling people, if they contact me through online, I’ll say, I want you to go and look at my online presence. Look and see if you even like me. Because we’re going to be working together. So, if I come off as too upfront, or too boofy, or too dramatic, or too anything, then … And you don’t feel comfortable, call somebody else and I’ll give you numbers of people that are completely different from me but also equally as qualified. I want everybody that comes into my studio to feel like if they’re not sure about something, that they can say, I’m not sure what this is doing, but what can we do about it?

Julie: I just think that that’s what women bring to business too. It’s a little bit of that warmth and understanding and compassion and listening and caring. It comes through. It really does. You would be a good therapist. But I’m glad you’re designing wedding gowns.

Leila: Yeah. Because I think that, I do think that people are more likely to get a dress made than to go to therapy.

Julie: But, what’s the biggest challenge? Because you’ve got the front part, the wonderful part where you’re working with your clients and you’re designing and creating beautiful things. But then you’ve got that back of the house, back office business, we call it, where you’ve got the books, you’ve got the government, you’ve got all that part, what was the biggest challenge and learning curve for you as you’ve built your business?

Leila: I guess the biggest thing is that there’s no such thing as balance. So, trying to balance it is actually a misnomer. So, I would love to balance everything. To make sure I spend as much time marketing, as I do selling, as I do talking to clients, as I do all of these things. But there’s no such thing. So, I think accepting that there’s no such thing as balance was huge unveiling for me. That some weeks, I’m going to spend all of my time marketing. And I’m going to be working on short clips. Or I’m going to be doing this or that or sending out a newsletter. Which, I have a list of people’s names. And I haven’t emailed them since March.

Julie: You’re so typical. We’ve all got that list of, okay … I mean, it weighs on us. That, oh, and then it’s such a relief when we get it done, but that’s the struggle of the small business owner.

Leila: Exactly. That you’re doing it all. And I think another thing that I’ve really learned is to, I know they say be you. But, it really is be you. I’m a vulnerable person. I put myself out as a vulnerable person. And I like my vulnerability. Now that I’m 41, I feel like I’m walking into this stage of my life where I get to be who I am.

And I’ve been told that I’m too sensitive. I’m too emotional. I’m too this, I’m too that. Now, I’m just owning it. I’m saying, yes, I am. I can be very dramatic. I can be sentimental. You know what? That’s what you get. I’m not harming anybody. So, in that sense, I don’t need to change that part of me. So, in being vulnerable and transparent and being upfront about things … Like, I had a client come in and she wanted like everyday things done and she was like, oh, can you do this? And I was like, I’m pretty sure. But, if I can’t, I’ll let you know. And she looked at me like, her face read as, well, that was honest. But I don’t like-

Julie: It’s good that you’re honest.

Leila: I know but I don’t like to false advertise so will I be able to serve everybody 150% the way that I dream of it? No, I won’t. And that’s disappointing of myself but at the same time, it’s realistic. Not everybody that comes in here is going … We’re not going to all connect. A couple years ago, I had … No, not a couple years ago, I don’t know, at some point, I don’t know the time right now. I had a client and I didn’t feel the connection. I still did, I think that I still did good work on her dress but it was an interesting moment to realize, yeah, I’m not going to connect with everybody and I have to get over that. Not everybody … You know?

Julie: Right. That’s so enlightening. Sometimes, from my business, sometimes, I will actually have to turn down the job because I sense something way bigger going on with them. And I know that it’s a rabbit hole for me. And I know in the long run it’s going to end ugly and I can’t help them. So, I’ve gotten caught in it enough that I just go, okay, we’ll just … And it’s nicely done but I’m really proud of … Because there was, we talked about women and settling and what we do. So, for me, it’s been that need to take care of everybody. And you can’t. You can’t fix it all. You can’t take care of it all. And you have to also take care of yourself in that.

Leila: Yeah. I mean, of course, the back-end stuff and the emailing and the replying to everybody all at the same time, right when you’ve got a deadline, that kind of stuff is definitely tricky because everybody needs to get a reply. Everybody needs their stuff done.

So, I think just reminding people that it’s just you doesn’t always help but sometimes it does. But then, also, just getting out of the way of myself has been a big thing and reminding myself that I name this business Curvy Custom Bride because it’s not about me. And that it’s about me being the support to people. Being able to hear, being able to listen, and design something that fits everything that they are talking about and then adding my aesthetic to it. That kind of thing. That’s the support part. You know what I’m saying?

It’s fun, though. Because I get to still do costume design in some ways. If somebody comes in and they’re like, oh, I want this kind of dress for this kind of theme and then you listen to them talk and it’s like, you could just bump it up the next level and make it even more of a wow moment if you took this out and added this and put this little element in here. And just like added some more pieces to it so that it’s still that theme but that it’s much more than the theme. You know, that kind of stuff?

Julie: And I think that your background in theater really adds that element to it.

Leila: Well, you know one of my, I told you that one of my goals is … Well, my big goals are feelings based. How I want to feel. And that those are the gauges for whether or not I’m succeeding or not. The other goals are actually tangible. That I want to franchise Curvy Custom Bride. So that other designers can do what I’m doing for the same clientele. So it’s still dealing with all the trauma around dresses and fittings and body self-image. All of that stuff. So, a lot of training, a lot of vetting, making sure that it’s the right people but the bigger goal is to franchise.

And what I’m thinking is still making sure … Yeah, there’s just a lot of … There’s a high, okay, so that the way that I got to where I am now, I just opened the space that I’m in right now a month ago. So it’s all still very new. And then I re-branded last fall. So, a lot of this is just taking off and it’s got a life of its own. And once I realized that it had a life of its own, then I’m like, okay, this has to be franchised. This has to be bigger than me. It has to be able to live longer than me. It has to, I guess the word is, it has to outlive me. It has to outgrow me. It’s not about me.

Julie: How long have you had the business? Since you opened your doors?

Leila: Let’s see, it’s kind of muddy because I’ve been doing work for people for about 10 years.

Julie: As a side gig?

Leila: Yes. As a side gig so it was always people asking me if I could do something for them, alter something for them. A bridesmaids dress, change out a zipper in a jacket or whatever. And I would say, sure. And then I’d say, just get me materials, I’m not going to charge you. And then having people say, no, you’re charging me, tell me what you want. So, a lot of people in the early days, sort of forced me to charge something. And then they forced me to charge more than I was saying.

I would have people come and say, could you hem my pants and I’d say, sure. And they’d say, how much is it? And I’m like, well, it’s nothing. And they’d say, well, you have to charge something. And I’m like, okay. I’ll take a dollar. And so then they would say, okay, I’m going to give you more than that. And then they would give me $20.00.

Julie: Yeah and now you’ve got this wonderful space. The space is beautiful.

Leila: Oh, thank you.

Julie: I absolutely love what you’re doing. It’s beautiful. It’s absolutely beautiful in such a bigger way than each individual person. I love it.

I have talked to a lot of women entrepreneurs and I always, always get surprised with the new knowledge that I learn. It just proves that we need more women in the business – one can learn just by listening from their amazing stories. To all the women small business owners trying to make it in the business – don’t give up, and always remember that we your sisters always got your back. Let’s show Leila some love on her IG @curvycustombride

]]>https://myownbossinc.com/2019/02/15/emotional-connections-drive-leila-bretons-custom-bridal-and-red-carpet-business/feed/0149A Family Heritage of Good Food and Good Timeshttps://myownbossinc.com/2019/02/15/a-family-heritage-of-good-food-and-good-times/
https://myownbossinc.com/2019/02/15/a-family-heritage-of-good-food-and-good-times/#respondFri, 15 Feb 2019 18:28:30 +0000https://myownbossinc.com/?p=146Anybody who knows me at all knows that I’m all about the food, so the restaurant business is close to my heart. My first step into entrepreneurship was owning a restaurant, and I fell in love with the industry. I had the rare chance of chatting with Erika White, owner of Fat’s Chicken and Waffles […]

]]>Anybody who knows me at all knows that I’m all about the food, so the restaurant business is close to my heart. My first step into entrepreneurship was owning a restaurant, and I fell in love with the industry. I had the rare chance of chatting with Erika White, owner of Fat’s Chicken and Waffles in Seattle’s Central District. “Why rare?” you ask. Well, it’s rare because the restaurant has boatloads of things going on at once – great food, great crowd and great music – and Erika is right in the middle of it. Listen to our podcast as we talk about how she started and how she handles her audience online – ‘coz you know… #foodporn! You can also read our chat below:

Julie: I was in the restaurant business and this just brings it back. I wanted to ask you when I walked in, like, “can I bus a table? Can I pour some water?”

Erika: Oh yeah, this is actually really chill because there’s times where there’s a lot of stuff happening, you know, we just get ourselves ready. Turn and burn and spin around.

Julie: I have to ask you, who does your social media, ‘cause it’s great.

Erika: We hired a digital marketer so she does our social media.

Julie: Do you take the pictures or do they?

Erika: Well, certain things. I get the DJ so I pick the DJs that are going to be every month and then I get all the images and we work with that. She does our social media as far as a part of posting all the different images and the backgrounds. But then we use another company called “Posse” and then they do the actual panel.

Julie: Okay yeah that’s food porn.

Erika: Yeah

Julie: My son and I take each other back and forth and look at your food all the time. Anybody listening: You’ve got to check out the Instagram. Best chicken and waffles. Now what’s the IG handle?

Erika: @Fatschicken

Julie: This place is amazing and I keep reading great reviews. You’ve got quite a lot of followers too.

Erika: Yeah, we have almost 18 thousand followers.

Julie: How long have you been going after them?

Erika: This is actually… tomorrow August 29, will be out 3 year anniversary. We’re celebrating today and tomorrow.

Julie: Happy birthday!

Erika: Thank you, thank you! We have a discount for the people who follow us on social media

Julie: Oh, I need to go check my code. Because I’m a follower.

Erika: Yeah, so we’ve got three years and tomorrow we are only going to be open for lunch service. Then I’m going to take the staff out and do something fun with them. We’re gonna go eat Chinese food, sing karaoke, and then find something fun else to do.

Julie: I love that, you’ve got that team feel to it. I notice you’re watching tables.

Erika: No, I just watch people walk in the door, so that’s why I was watching them.

Julie: You’ve gotta go take care of them.

Erika: Yeah, go and have a seat.

Julie: So this is the reality of the restaurant. You take care of your customers first and I’ve got to work in this chat between the afternoon quiet time before the rush starts. But it’s startin’ to fill up because it’s a birthday celebration and there’s an awesome vibe here. You’ve got an active kitchen, all kinds of cool people in and out, great music.

Tell me a little bit in between, your journey with food service and the restaurant business. Okay, what got you into food?

Erika: I grew up, and my father was a chef, so I grew up in a household with good food. He was from the Midwest, but he was a chef by trade and everyone grew up knowing… learning how to cook it was… for sure there would be sometime when he would cook or someone else would cook but, you had to learn to cook for yourself too. So you know, our place was always the go-to place if there were parties they would have with their friends and my dad would cook the spread of food or if it was just like regular dinner and people comin’ over and receive a good meal and have a good time.

That’s just been a part of my own life. Being younger and they’re having parties where you know they’re having drinks and then you got your aunts like… oh go pour me this drink and you know which one is that? They would point to the bottle and then they give you tips. Without even knowing it I was being trained to do this my whole life since I was maybe 5 years old.

Julie: That is awesome! I love that.

Erika: I’ve always been involved in music. Music was always played in my home. I also perform music, and did a lot in the 90’s toward get the surge going again for the hip hop community here then after that, I always wanted to have a restaurant so I started shifting my thought process towards learning what I needed to learn to have a restaurant.

Julie: So where’d you go for that?

Erika: I actually worked at Purple Café a wine bar in downtown Seattle. I opened up the downtown location in 2006. I worked for that company for 9 years.

In my 9th year I was 1 year managing up at Barrio the other sister restaurant. I had 8 years at Purple Café Seattle downtown. But it was like school, you learned a lot and you got paid to learn.

So when I got the point to I realize this is a great place for me to learn what I need to learn. Or apply toward something that I eventually would want to do. Within the one year managing at Barrio my business partner Marcus Lalario he approached me and was like I have this great idea and he knew it was something that I wanted to do, we had talked a couple of years before that. When this space became available we took the concept…

All of our concepts and merged them together for the idea of creating Fat’s.

Julie: Seattle needed that. We don’t have that Southern focus on food and the food looks amazing. But you’re changing it up and putting your own twist on it.

Erika: Oh yeah, we put our own twist on it. But then we also have to have something that was changing in this neighborhood, I grew up in Madison Valley, graduated from Garfield High School.

I came here when it was Catfish Corner, before that it was a burger joint called One Stop so I came to One Stop to be able to have this historical space.

Julie: What a connection.

Erika: And to be able to put my concept here was divine. For something that was meant to be.

Julie: So for you to start at Purple was sort of like an apprenticeship, because they have the systems that enable you to take it…

Erika: Yup, and apply it. You can apply it within a restaurant there is always room to grow. Or if for example for me opportunity came up to… I was ready, you know, I know I knew enough to know how to make Fat’s be successful. I had all the tools I needed.

I always say I went to Purple university. I always told people that if… when I started working at Purple is when I had the idea before that of having a restaurant. But once I started working there I realized that you know, after working there I realized if I’m going to try to open a restaurant in 2006 it would have been unsuccessful because I didn’t have the tools.

And when Fat’s came about, I had the tools. I had everything that I needed.

Julie: Can you imagine trying to cost out a recipe or a menu or something like that? you wouldn’t even…

Erika: I wouldn’t even understand the concept of what the means and how to order and how much to order and how much to sell um for. And then there would be all the food cost, the insurance, and all the other things that cost.

Julie: Margins that big, you know 10% if you’re lucky, you know 5% it’s a very thin margin. So yeah. But it’s a great… I mean what a fun business to be in. I loved it.

Erika: Yeah, it’s definitely a fun business, especially if you have something that people are missing or that they are looking for, something that everyone’s always asking when are you going to open another location because you know it’s not super big in there.

And our brunches are crazy busy. But I’m always like no. Initially I thought I wanted to, but I’m like the whole idea about Fat’s is to come here to this location to get the feeling because it’s all about the neighborhood and it’s about…The vibe, and it’s about the energy.

Julie: And you.

Erika: Well yeah, that too.

Julie: You know, it’s such a part of it you can’t recreate that in a strip mall.

Erika: Right. Or take it somewhere else and people all like I like the one in CD (Central District) better, you know what I mean, because of course they’re not going to be the same but I realize that Fat’s is only meant to be one location, it’s meant to be where it’s at, right here.

You know, even the name Fat’s comes from a friend of ours another guy named Marcus but that’s his nickname, and his uncle was one of the first investors into Cathy’s Corner so there’s… So there’s history again with these sorta connections. With the different people and why it made sense.

Julie: That’s super important. You got a successful place here. I love the vibe. What do you see in the future? Is this what you wanna do or do you see maybe another kind of spot, do you have something goin’ on in your head?

Erika: It wouldn’t be a restaurant.

Julie: It wouldn’t be a restaurant? I like that, would it be music or…

Erika: Well it could be a combination of that… whatever it is there’s always going to be some sort of music. Here’s my son…he’s cooking and was just walking by. He helps out front too, but he also cooks.

Julie: I love family.

Erika: You know, he’s a producer- me and his father used to do music together. We were both part of that resurgence in the early 90’s.

Julie: You’re talking about hip hop.

Erika: Yup, he just… that’s just a part of his DNA. His music, he’s a producer and he’s an artist, and a music man. But for a business, I’m thinking of men’s health care as far as grooming and getting them a good shave, and giving them pedicures, and manicures.

Julie: Oh, for men?

Erika: Yeah.

Julie: Oh wow. So would it be a store front location or would you go to their location?

Erika: No, it’ll be a store front location.

Julie: That makes sense!

Erika: So when you walk in, you walk in and you know this is not for women, it’s for men. It’s for… you know you can go there and you can get a pedicure and feel comfortable getting a pedicure.

Julie: Right, right. You’re not…surrounded by purple and pink.

Erika: In the front nails, and then in the back, you have it where you can have beer and wine. I want it to be like a…

Julie: I love that.

Erika: I think about like what would guys want? And I’m thinking about things that would be successful or something that’s missing. I ask all the guys too, you know if you can go and get you a nice shave, hot towel…

Erika: Yeah and I know how I feel when I go get a pedicure or manicure. So it’s just like.

Julie: I feel like a princess.

Erika: Yeah, you walk out and feel like they’re well groomed.

Julie: Well groomed. That really close shave that someone can give them.

Erika: And it’s not like rushing them, you have an appointment you have a set time. It’s an experience, you know I want them to have an experience. Then go over to Fat’s and get something to eat.

Julie: There you go, I like it. So you want to be close.

Erika: It can be relatively close.

Julie: So then you just have to go through the research

Erika: Well that’s just like the concept of what I have the most passion towards, beyond music that I feel is a service. I got into service, I want that people eat good food and feel good and have a good time I want to see, you know talkin’ bout if a man feels good he’s going to make his woman feel good. You know what I mean. So it’s like we always doing things, it’s cool like you guys can have a nap, let me help program so it’s like equal.

Julie: The one thing I liked about the restaurant business – you get these real grouchy people…

Erika: They’re hungry, they’re hangry. Let’s get you good.

Julie: They get nurtured and the get cared for. They know you care, all the way. I don’t think I can do a restaurant another way.

Erika: Yeah. Oh, it has to be, I always tell people… and the people I hired are from day one, I have another lady here, day one. The other lady who works here she came 6 months after and everyone has been around from the beginning, you know, and they’ve grown.

Julie: That says a lot for you as an employer.

Erika: One person had never even had restaurant experience. It goes to show that it is…

Julie: Recipes. How involved are you with that?

Erika: Recipes, were all Patrick Doors. He’s the original chef here. Then we have 2 other great chefs Josh and Bruce, they both came up from Texas and so they put a little of their own twist on too. But Patrick had the original… my concept was for a house, house friend vibe all of that. You know Marcus had the idea like the orange you know a very inviting color. And he did the macrame and the plants and stuff…

Julie: I like that, it’s a throwback. Yeah.

Erika: We wanted to have it feel like a time machine with these different eras, feel old school…

Julie: Oh perfect!

Erika: Everything all in one. Feel like home.

Julie: It’s kinda like it’s been here and things have been added as you go, and it does feel like home.

Erika: So everything that is in here is exactly how it was, maybe a couple of plants have gotten changed over but the whole wall there, to the wood, the everything. The furniture was designed from a great artist here. So he designed all our woodwork and everything.

Julie: It’s beautiful, it’s really beautiful.

Erika: Tables and furniture.

Julie: In knowing that running this business, and all the different things that go into th front of the house, back of the house – all of it. (Listen up, everybody! Right now it’s cool to open a business and have a business!) What tip would you give new owners to help them to start up? What would you say they need to do before they… as they’re considering it?

Erika: Research. You got to do research, you got to know. Maybe do research and be involved like actually be hands on. It’s a part reading but it’s a part actually doing and understanding what it takes. It’s like you can’t say you want to be a barber but you never cut anyone’s hair.

It’s always amazing talking with great women and sharing stories of how they started and then looking at how far they’ve come. It’s not easy… it takes a lot of preparation and guts. Such an inspiration! Let’s show Erika some love on her IG account @fatschicken.

]]>https://myownbossinc.com/2019/02/15/a-family-heritage-of-good-food-and-good-times/feed/0146A Gift Leads to a Storied and Timeless Businesshttps://myownbossinc.com/2019/02/15/a-gift-leads-to-a-storied-and-timeless-business/
https://myownbossinc.com/2019/02/15/a-gift-leads-to-a-storied-and-timeless-business/#respondFri, 15 Feb 2019 18:14:04 +0000https://myownbossinc.com/?p=143We see so much trending on our social media that it can become a blur, but one medium is sparking trends and it makes me so happy – calligraphy! And trending or not, it’s been something that has always called to my soul. Maybe it’s the history, the feel of old libraries, and stories reaching […]

]]>We see so much trending on our social media that it can become a blur, but one medium is sparking trends and it makes me so happy – calligraphy! And trending or not, it’s been something that has always called to my soul. Maybe it’s the history, the feel of old libraries, and stories reaching out to me from another time and place.

How satisfying it is to see the words form and the magic begin!

I had the absolute pleasure of interviewing Jessica Smith the amazing artist behind@jessmithdesigns. She makes elegant and sophisticated Calligraphy pieces that are awe-inspiring and have just started making a full-time business out of it. Listen to our chat on our podcast links below, and read the interview in words – and no it isn’t handwritten

Jessica: Good. Very, very wet but I’m assuming it’s like that in Seattle, too. That’s what they say. Is that where you’re calling from?

Julie: Yes. It was raining all night and it was actually kind of cool because we haven’t had a lot of rain recently, surprisingly enough. And I love the drops on the windows – it’s just comforting.

Jessica: Oh, I know. We sat with the windows open yesterday. It was so nice. It’s finally cooling down and we did not mind cozying up and settling in. It was awesome.

Julie: What part of Pennsylvania do you live in?

Jessica: I’m in South Central PA. I grew up outside of the Philly area. Now, my husband brought me back to this area. I love it.

Julie: It’s such a beautiful state. I’ve been born and raised in this area, in Washington, and I was back there with my daughter, we took a road-trip through PA when I was taking her to college in New York and oh my gosh, what a beautiful state. It was wonderful.

Jessica: Yeah, it is. I love visiting everywhere but I don’t know if I could imagine living anywhere. I just love the seasons.

Julie: I’m the same way. I like to see other places, and the quirkiness and the uniqueness, and different things. But then coming home, that’s the cool thing.

One of my best trips was going with her and seeing Philadelphia. I love history, so that was just amazing. I think that’s why I’m so drawn to your work, too. Because it’s so historical and steeped in the – that beauty.

Jessica: Thank you. Wow, I’m glad you noticed that. I have my Master’s in history and I really try to tie in people’s stories and their past into their work that they order from me.

Julie: How do you do that?

Jessica: How do I tie people’s history in?

Julie: What draws you to that, or what’s the process?

Jessica: I love to listen to people. It’s so easy for someone to come to my website and place an order and make it a transaction, but man, if I get the chance to send them an email and strike up a conversation to get to know, “Why are you having this piece made for you?” Or, “What’s the meaning behind it?” Just so I can make it all the more special. Striking up that conversation and building that relationship, to hear what they have to say allows me to know, “Well, they’re very calm and can kick up their feet and watch some football on a Sunday but at the same time, on a Saturday night they like to get dolled up and go out.” So maybe something clean and sophisticated rather than fun and bouncy lines. Just try to pull the simplest little elements in, that no one would really know unless they know the people, into their artwork.

Julie: I’d say that would open your heart as you’re doing the work, too, just because you’ve made that connection.

Jessica: Oh my gosh, yes, absolutely.

Julie: That is really cool. I like hearing that part of it because your finished work is just amazing. I was looking at your bio and I’m just going, “You’re not busy at all.” You’ve got three baby girls. How old are your baby girls now?

Jessica: Oh, they recently turned five. Five, three and one.

Julie: My goodness, you are busy.And then you’ve got two fur-babies. What are they?

Jessica: Yeah. They recently passed away.

Julie: I’m sorry.

Jessica: I know. So close to each other, so I guess it really was that tie of the heart. They were about 10 years old, both of them. A golden retriever and Irish setter. One was my dog, from when I graduated college, and the other one was my husband’s. It was really a big piece of us, the first individual aspect of our lives.

Julie: It’s sort of the transition to having children. I can take care of a dog, I can take care of a child.I’ve had two goldens, and they’re the most amazing dogs, I love them. My son has one. They’re fantastic.

Jessica: They’re the best. I can’t get any other dog. The golden was mine, yeah. I just cannot, I won’t get any other breed.

Julie: My son, we want him to have his dog bred so that we can have the pup and have him house-break it for us. It’d be perfect. Then I don’t have to deal with all that stuff. They’re so adorable as puppies, too. And a good family dog. All right, so tell me your baby girls’ names.

Jessica: My five-year-old is Savannah. The three-year-old is McKenna and then my one-year-old is Nila.

Julie: Okay, I knew you’d have great names for your children.

Jessica: Well, thank you.

Julie: So your background’s in history. How did you get started with the calligraphy? Did it begin back in grade school when you were writing your name?

Jessica: You know what? It’s so ironic how everything’s come full circle. I remember in high school, my aunt used to travel a lot and she picked me up a calligraphy set. She’s from Europe and she sent it to me. I just could not figure it out and the scratching noise that the tools made on the paper, it just hurt my ears and I figured, “I don’t know what to do with this.”

Then, when I was in college I worked at a local café and I was always asked to do their board and their lettering and make them pretty. That was their priority. They’d pull me from being a barista in the coffee shop and put me on the boards.

Julie: You’re that girl. I love that girl.

Jessica: Here I am studying to be a teacher, and here I am studying to be a journalist, and everything else because I changed my major ten times. I had no idea that right in front of me was going to be my future.

I did that, and graduated college. I spent the past 11 years teaching. I recently left to go full-time with my business.

A couple of years ago, my mother got me, for Christmas, another calligraphy course. It was online and I figured, all right, I’ll give this a stab again. So I went at it and it was so relaxing. It was actually right after I had my first child. It was my time. When she went to bed, I could get out and I can just be mesmerized by the strokes on the paper and how the ink would flow. Being able to construct artwork, and each letter have different … No two letters are the same … That was so relaxing to me.

When I saw that other people took an interest in that, and they saw that they wanted to give somebody a work of art that had a lot of effort put into it, and was written by hand, that mattered to me. I appreciated it so much.

I just kept building it from there. Every piece of artwork is a story to somebody, and is a part of someone’s family now. It keeps me going. Every single time that somebody asks me to do that. It’s just more and more motivating. Now, I don’t just do the artwork, I’m also teaching the workshops to other people, too.

Julie: I was going to ask that. When did you start doing workshops?Let’s back up and do it in sequential order. So, you started it as a side gig, the calligraphy. You were teaching and people are seeing what you do and wanting to hire you to put together wedding invitations or whatever?

Jessica: Honestly, a lot of them are men wanting gifts for their wives.

Julie: Now that’s a smart man.

Jessica: I always tell them too, I said, “You want brownie points, tell them your first anniversary, the traditional gift is of paper. Tell her you researched it a little bit. You put some thought into it. Not that you contacted me about two weeks before.”

Julie: “Please, do you have time?” That’s great.

Jessica: Yeah. A lot of bridal clients. It is a good balance between not just weddings. I did my first all-calligraphy wedding invitation suite this year and I just adored it, and I know that she valued that too. That symbolism of tradition was really important to her. So I was able to do that, and along with that, I’m still doing anniversary lyrics for people who I’ve helped in the past, too.

Julie: Oh, that’s great. So when did you quit teaching and then turn this into the main business that you do? Other than your family.

Jessica: Honestly, it’s pretty new. About a month ago. I didn’t really tell many people that I was going to be making that transition. But I knew in my head, and my husband knew, and had a sense of that the time was coming to do it. I’ve spent the past several years building that bridge and preparing to make that big transition. On my birthday, it was August 17th, I did it.

Julie: Congratulations.

Jessica: Thank you. It was the best birthday gift ever.

Julie: That is so cool. How long have you had your website? It’s beautiful, by the way.

Jessica: Thank you. This website is probably about … I want to say recently. Probably about two years, almost two years old.

Julie: So you’ve had this part functional? That’s a smart way to do it, you’ve got the side gig and then you get things in place, and then you move forward and make that transition. It just makes a lot of sense to do it that way. Bootstrapping, or whatever we want to call it. Building a business that way is safe and then you can test your market. You’re not all-in one something with a lot of investment. You’re checking the market out and seeing if you love it, because a lot of times, especially when you’re creative as you are, you take something that you love to do, and it’s a passion for you, and you have an emotional connection, but when you start doing it for money, and there’s a deadline, then it becomes hard.

So you’ve tested all that out. And you know that, “This is still what I want to do.” That’s really smart.

Jessica: Yeah, absolutely. I think a handful of people would say, “You’re taking that leap and going full-time.” I explained to them, I said, “No! I would never do that. I would never just stop what I’m doing and naively go into this world of ‘I like to put things together’ and ‘I like to write letters on paper’.”

It took some time, and I always think of that leap, if you’re going to call it that, it’s not a blind jump. I have a soft landing and I spent the past years almost like a ballerina, building that muscle, and getting that grit that you need in order to really make that move into making this your career. And when that time comes, you’re prepared to then make that leap, but you’re also going to have that soft landing, knowing what’s coming up ahead of you.

Julie: I love what you just said, so that’s going to be one of our pro-tip because it is so smart. And people do have a funny idea about how businesses start. Like what you just said. Like, “Okay, I think I’m going to open up a calligraphy shop.” And you open your doors and everything happens. When it’s really been something well thought out all along the way.

Jessica: It’s almost a trend, it seems like. And I just want to tell people, “Don’t let it be a trend.” You need to be an entrepreneur. That means you need to be educated about it.

Julie: There’s a lot of, I think they call it entrepreneur porn, out there. I heard that word and I’m going, “Okay.” Well, you know, it totally makes sense. All those Instagram sites where they have that unrealistic look of what … Especially, I think, for women entrepreneurs, there’s a bunch of those sites where it’s just two young things with their glasses of champagne and their high heels. Like, “This is what we do every day.” Okay. And this is the lifestyle. It’s more like an entrepreneur lifestyle thing, which is so unrealistic, when really, we’re sitting in our sweats.

Jessica: I’m totally in my underpants right now.

Julie: Exactly, me too. Going to pour myself a cup of coffee and do this. And that’s the beauty of entrepreneurship, is we can work in our sweats but then we also have to show up every day and we work, often, more than that 40 hours a week that a lot of people are working. Because your business is a passionate thing. I like hearing the way you said that.

Tell me about the workshops. When did those happen? How did you decide to do them? Where do you hold them? The whole thing.

Jessica: So I had been thinking about workshops for a while now. There’s not many calligraphy workshops in the area, especially pointed pen calligraphy, is what I do. I thought it was a no-brainer. I’ve been teaching, I’ve been an educator for 11 years. I can take what I know on how to structure lessons and make them fun and engaging and apply it to the calligraphy, and then offer it to people. I know a lot of calligraphy, since it is very traditional form of writing, it’s very formalized, and you sit and it’s a couple of hours and you craft it. I wanted to have a twist on it, so people would be comfortable but they would have fun and they would still learn a skill that they could take with them.

A lot of my calligraphy, I dubbed “Wine and Tine”. I’ve contacted local wineries and they’ve been so receptive to it. They’ve been so much fun.

Julie: So you go to a winery? And at their tasting shop you have your workshop? Is that it?

Jessica: Yeah. Or a lot of wineries have small banquet rooms that they would typically host bridal showers and smaller events in, and they’ve been willing to open their doors. I can include a glass of wine with their package, or they can just go downstairs and grab what drinks that they want for themselves, or bring a bottle up if they wanted to. And have fun with it.

Julie: That’d be fun. I can imagine that with my ladies group, we all raised our kids together. We would love something like that because we’re always looking for something cool to do. And I imagine you get that bridal-age group, as well. That’s nice for people.

Julie: How many people attend your workshops when you have them?

Jessica: I usually cap them off at around 20 or so. Just so I can make sure I can reach out to everyone. I think I’ve had four – I’m going to have my fifth one in November. They’ve all sold out so far, so I’ve been over-the-moon happy about that.

Julie: Wonderful. I was speaking to my sonn-to-be-daughter-in-law – she loves the calligraphy and she is interested in the workshop, so we may make the trek.

Jessica: Yeah, come on up!

Julie: She was so excited when she heard I was talking to someone with a calligraphy business this morning. She said, “Oh, can I listen to it early?” So I’m going to torment her a little.

Jessica: Well, hopefully my next step will be virtual and being able to work with people online.

Julie: I think that would be really good. There’s some amazing things that you could do. If you wanted to do one-on-one, Zoom is a fabulous tool for that. That would be great.

Jessica: I took Melissa Epson’s … Then, I think it was called “I Still Love Calligraphy.” I think she might have changed, recently, to just calligraphy.org or something a little bit more simple than that. It was called “I Still Love Calligraphy.” And it was a modern calligraphy. I think she offers a lot more than that now, too.

Julie: How long ago did you take the course?

Jessica: It would have been five years ago.

Julie: Well you’ve come a long way in that five years.

Jessica: Thank you.

Julie: That section on your Instagram feed where it has calligraphy, that little icon, it has some really pretty things in there. Is that all what you’ve done?

Jessica: You know what’s funny? One of the first people I did work for was a guy who needed a gift for his wife. If you just scroll all the way to the bottom of my Instagram, you will still see my first sets in there. I love sharing that with people. I’m always tagging my students, and I’m saying, “Look!”

But he ordered a piece from me, and I sent it to him. I was like, “Wow this is really cool, I’m sending my artwork to someone.” Then I went back, it was almost a year to the day of their anniversary, so now it’s their second year anniversary. And I looked at what I sent him and I said, “Oh my gosh, this is so embarrassing. I cannot believe he paid me for this piece.”

And I just, randomly … I didn’t contact him, but I created a new piece for him and I sent it to them on their second anniversary, and I said, “Please replace that. Here you go, I know you didn’t ask for it. The fact that you believed in me meant so much.” So I stayed in touch with them so that I could update their work for them.

Julie: Oh, that’s really cool. And it’s funny, the process of our growth. And I think that that documentation is a good reminder for us as we work. We see how far we’ve come. And yet, what you did was lovely, but as the owner/creator of it, you go, “Okay, I’m further along than that now.”

I was looking at the post of the Christmas tree with … Oh Holy Night. That is so beautiful. Tell me about this.

Jessica: Thank you. You know, I think every once in a while, you need to take a step back in your business and matter what it is, and do something for yourself. That was last year at Christmas, and I was swamped with Christmas card orders and everything else going on that when you get that much stress to a point that … there’s stress, but you just need some inspiration. I pull out a pen and thought, “I need to do something. I need to do something creative.”

That was a personal project for me, but I took paper that I don’t usually work with, I grabbed ink that I don’t usually work with and I just … I actually started with the tree shape and from there I thought, “Let’s incorporate the lettering,” so I did that all with the pointed pen, and created my own little happy project.

Julie: That is awesome. You know what you could do, which would be really cool? You could print that off and that would go like crazy. I would be all over that. Because that is just the sort of Christmas item that just makes a spot in your home. For the holidays. That’s beautiful.

Jessica: Thank you.

Julie: Your welcome. I’ve just enjoyed talking to you so much.

It was such a pleasure to talk to this warm, lighthearted woman. Life for women surely do not stop after becoming a mother! Who knows? You could be like Jessica and all other incredible women entrepreneurs out there who manage their own businesses while rocking it as a parent. Let’s show her some love on her Instagram account @jessmithdesigns.

]]>https://myownbossinc.com/2019/02/15/a-gift-leads-to-a-storied-and-timeless-business/feed/0143A Love Letter to Her Mom Turned Into A Businesshttps://myownbossinc.com/2019/02/15/a-love-letter-to-her-mom-turned-into-a-business/
https://myownbossinc.com/2019/02/15/a-love-letter-to-her-mom-turned-into-a-business/#respondFri, 15 Feb 2019 17:49:13 +0000https://myownbossinc.com/?p=140Who doesn’t love going to the spa and getting pampered after a long and tiring day? I know right? Nobody! I must say, it’s one of the all-time best places to relax and treat yourself and that is why the spa industry is booming right now. With an increasing number of spas popping up nationwide, […]

]]>Who doesn’t love going to the spa and getting pampered after a long and tiring day? I know right? Nobody! I must say, it’s one of the all-time best places to relax and treat yourself and that is why the spa industry is booming right now.

With an increasing number of spas popping up nationwide, one woman entrepreneur took it on herself to educate people who are starting or own a business in the Spa Industry; her name is Ramona Rice, Founder of Spapreneur and Co-creator of Spapreneur Podcast. She is able to captivate a great audience with her podcast as she and her mom tackle current issues and all things related to the Spa Industry. Go listen to our chat – all the podcast links are down below! Our fantastic conversation is right here, too!

Julie: I’ve been intrigued by what your company does, Spapreneurs. You have a partner, is that correct?

Ramona: That is my mom, yes, who is also a small business owner. She’s a certified massage therapist and aesthetician in Virginia. And she started her company, De stress Express, in 1996 with a one-room massage studio. It is now a 4000 square foot massage studio with 30 massage therapists, 15 treatment rooms…

We’ve worked together on that. A couple of years ago, I was actually a mastermind with Chris Decker. I was in the real estate space, I wasn’t really happy with it but it was the one thing I knew how to do and he goes, “Well, tell me about your mom’s business.”, when I was talking about it and how I’d helped her with marketing and business planning and things like that, he goes, “This is where you need to go.” and that’s where Spapreneur came in. It’s really a love letter to that beginning massage therapist my mom was back in ’96, because there wasn’t any resources for her. She legitimately rented a conference room out from an old copier client and started doing massages.

Julie: Wow, that’s great. Then to grow it the way she did, I imagine she bootstrapped it and learned on her own.

Ramona: Pretty much, yes. There was no social media at the time, she didn’t even have a website, and email was brand spanking new. So, she had to go out there in boots and leather and go out there and actually sell, which I don’t think a lot of small business owners really understand any more, that experience. I was in and out of that business for many years, as I had kids and needed a job. So, I went in there and systematized everything, started it as a real business. That’s where it really grew, between the two of us.

Julie: Yes, that’s one thing I always talk to my owners about when I’m doing consulting, that you can’t scale out unless you have a system set up that people can come in and take over that part of your job, because you can’t do everything all the time. You have to be able to trust other people to do it. Yeah, that’s a game changer right there, good for you.

Where did you get your training to understand that systems were even needed?

Ramona: Well, a couple of different places. I, for many years, was a retail manager for Bath and Body Works stores. Seeing how they set up their stores, the way they organized it, sales plans and things like that. That was really on-the-job training. I do have a sociology degree from the University of Virginia, so that helped a lot with just understanding how communities and cultures kind of come together.

Julie: Yeah, that’s awesome. Good for you. You have to go ahead and find a way to make a living once you’re done and you did.

Ramona: That’s what I did, I worked retail management and did that for a long time and then I had a baby and realized, “Oh, I can’t do retail.” So, I tried to be a real estate agent, that didn’t work. At the time my mother, again, needed some help at her day spa. Her front desk person quit, so I stepped in to do it for a part-time job for myself, being a young mom. What happened was that I went in there with that kind of retail manager mindset of going, wait a minute, we can fix these systems. We can make them streamlined and more, when it gets kind of her policy of a very organic kind of curse. There are many years of, at least once a week, one of us wanting to quit or fire the other one.

Julie: It’s nice to hear you say that. I’ve worked with my husband for 30 some years, I know what you’re talking about. I’m sure he wants to fire me on a daily basis and I want to fire him, so it works… you find your way through.

Ramona: Yeah, what happened was, I started getting some training and then she kind of kicked me out of the nest nicely. I got a real grown up job for a real estate company in our area. I did all of their social media marketing and residual marketing and did that for a couple of years, and then my husband actually passed away, my first husband passed away suddenly. I quit that job, moved the children and I into my mom’s house, and that’s when Spapreneur came about.

I needed something to do that I could control, something that I loved to do. One thing I really love to do, is talk to day spa owners and day spa independent professionals, who are very similar to my mother, love what they do, but need to make a decent living from it. 85% of the industry is women, so I’m really talking to a lot of women. They’re full of ‘preneurs, so they have to be able to, they’re not only the product but they have to be the CEO, the marketing manager, the financial planner, everything. That is something that a lot of massage schools and spa schools, esthetician schools do not teach their people, or prepare them to be. They make great practitioners, but the business side, they completely ignore. That’s what we focus on. We focus on helping them build a business plan and executing that, and then switching from an employee mindset to being a business owner mindset, because the decisions that a business owner makes versus an employee, are very different. That’s the kind of stuff we work with.

Julie: That’s really good. I was looking at it and I read one of the blogs on it. This was just a topic near and dear to my heart, about charging what you should charge and not just trying to chase the cash flow. That’s huge, I think it’s just hard, especially for women. We don’t value ourselves enough to charge what we’re worth and it’s almost like we’re too embarrassed to say, “Okay, this is it. And you need to pay me.” type thing. We’re worried that they’re gonna reject us and say, “Ooh, that’s a lot of money.” It’s like, own the high niche.

Again, I struggle with that. I always encourage them to grab that upscale niche, just be the best at what you are and find that spot and make sure you are, of course, the best in your service and in your customer service, both of them. So, that you can say, “I’m the best, I’m worth what you’re paying me.” and there’s no debate. There’s no family and friends discount, and this is it. I liked what you said too, about the idea that you’re just trying to get enough cash to pay the bills to get, you know, that struck home. What kind of reaction did you get to that blog? It was really a good one.

Ramona: With all our topics, one of the things that we’re known for because we have a really successful podcast and the blog, of course, is we use these rules for spa professionals and one of them is, I don’t know if I’m allowed to use the foul language so I’m going to bleep it for myself, is don’t F with the money. We use the full word.

Julie: I saw that, yeah. I read it and it doesn’t offend me, so hey. It’s fine with me if you say it.

Ramona: And the reason why we put it, if I feel all my Spapreneursare like, what’s rule number one? They will say, “Don’t F with the money.” They’ll say the full word and they really embrace it. What we mean by that is, is that we start with money first, not because we’re greedy, but money and time. When you invest your money or you invest your time over your value are, typically, with business owners, specifically where women are concerned, we’re doing it based upon our value. We want to help people, we want to solve problems, we want to do these things but we worry about money getting in the way. Money is really just a number on a sheet of paper, that’s the first mindset shift that we get them to switch. It’s like, you deserve and you earned the money received.

The other thing we talk about is that in the relationship with the customer and the practitioner, the customer can never be right. That saying is so out of date and so old and the white man said it, so please, dear god, whoever is listening to this, forget that saying. I hate that saying. Every time a customer has ever said it to me, I’ve wanted to slap them in the face because it’s so wrong, because the customer is never right. The customer’s job in the transaction is to try to get the service or product at the lowest price possible. So, if the customer is always right, then the person who is serving that product will never win. Instead, we have to meet the expectations of the customer that means we have to provide great value. They should never be buying you based on price. If they’re doing that, your price is too low. That’s the wrong customer for you, if they are buying based on price. There are those people who are like, “I want the best price,” those are the people we do not worry about.

Julie: Especially in your business, with the spa business, it’s just a circle downward if you’re going to try to construct your business based on price.

Ramona: There’s no way to scale.

Julie: There’s no winning.

Ramona: There’s legitimately only so many hours those massage therapists or estheticians to work. It’s not like where you’re selling units of something, you’re selling an actual hour of your time. Well, guess what, that hour of time is precious, you need to pay for that. Again, a lot of them are worried about franchise massage places where they don’t get away with charging 49.00 a service.

Julie: Then they are hawking for the tips at the end of it. All you hear is, “Don’t forget to tip. Don’t forget.”Which I get, because they’ve removed the tipping from it. I come from the hospitality industry, we owned a restaurant for many, many years and that’s offensive to me, coming from there, to remove that. You’re not taking care of your people because on the market, if they were on their own, they’re worth at least double that, for that hour, or close to. To reduce them to that, to me, I went to one once and it was almost like I felt really bad the whole time I was there because they took something that was supposed to be a special experience and they turned it into a bunch of cattle being herded through and then they’re wanting me to tip, because that’s the only way.

They’re giving people stable employment, but then they turn it into, to make the employees happy, they’re bugging the client for the tip. It doesn’t belong that way and that’s my philosophy, I know that people go to them, but I don’t know. I like your philosophy, that it’s a special experience and build it around making your client happy and they come back, because you’re skilled.

Ramona: Yeah, so that’s the thing that we have to, within a lot of industries, but especially in the spa industry, is that the other thing we’re having to shift is, a lot of them don’t want to sell to their clients and there’s a lot of reasons why. One is this ethical thing, a lot of massage work, people don’t realize, at least here in Virginia where I live, we’re governed under the board of nursing. We actually have medical overture and things like that, which means that your doctor doesn’t technically sell to you. Neither should your massage therapist, but at the same time massage therapy aims to bring them back in. So, we did the paradigm to discuss that we need to say, as you get your clients and why this needs to be a regular experience. We tried to tell them stop it, or you need to become a habit with your clients. I just got married and one December was, every two weeks I was in the esthetician getting my skin worked on and my skin glowed that day.

Julie: I’ve heard that.

Ramona: In your 40s.

Julie: God knows I passed that milestone a while back.

Ramona: As time marches on, it marches on your face.

Julie: I know people who have gotten regular massages and they feel better for it, so I sort of pictured it as you, it’s not like you’re selling but there’s ways to do it with that informational brochure about why your body needs this. I know you’re doing it, you’re picturing all those market avenues that you can guide these other spa owners how to do. That’s brilliant, that’s really good.

Ramona: Yeah, I think they trust us because we actually still own a day spa that’s successful and we’re honest, that’s the other thing I think that step opens a little of the difference in a lot of other people in our industry, we’re honest when we’ve messed up. When we did something stupid at our day spa we’ll actually admit it and then the mother daughter dynamic, I think people are very intrigued by that and we’re just ourselves, we do not treat it that seriously. When we first started the podcast, one of the things that we noticed was all the other day spa podcasts were either people who were really marketing towards that big city kind of day spa, and that’s a good niche. Then there were others I call organic granola, there was nobody for the people who like to drink wine and still like western medicine and that’s us. We are not that traditional spa owner where we talk and whisper. No, we have real lives, I bring my kids to the day spa, we say bad language, we eat probably way more processed foods than necessary.

We still believe in the woowoo, but it’s not guided by the woo woo. I’ve always them, look you cannot massage appendicitis away. There’s a little bit of everything and I think that’s what was missing in our market. I think for small businesses, the one thing I say is, niche as far down as you can because that’s really where you’re going to build your tribe. The one thing I can say, and this goes across any business I’ve ever worked with or been to, get to know what your customer needs from you and fill that role. Sometimes with our Spapreneurs, what they really need is to have a business girl friend, to understand what it’s like to be in that massage room and to have a thousand other things you have to get done, they’re regular girl friends who realize, don’t understand that. What would Ramona do?

Julie: Oh, yeah that’s cool. That’s a good way to put it, I like the way you’ve found that balance between that and I think you’d be the person I’d be looking for to go to for the spa experience.

Ramona: Yeah.

Julie: For my personality type. Because if it’s too, I use the word woo woo, and there’s a place for that but my personality’s just not that, that’s not a good fit for meSo, I don’t mind, I can either talk or not talk but I like joking, I like doing all that stuff to make it more interesting.

Ramona: It makes you more comfortable as the client.

Julie: Yeah. Basically they’re getting down and they’re naked, and you’re rubbing on them or whatever, there has to be a little bit of a connection in trust. That’s what you’re building your business on.One of the questions I have is, you started this around two years ago, Spapreneur?

Ramona: Yeah, about two years ago, so 2016.

Julie: Okay, I know you’re on Instagram and you’ve got a nice website and you got the podcast, there are two questions here and if I can remember the other one I’ll get to it but the first one is, how do you plan to monetize or what is the all around goal for Spapreneur? You have the thriving business, but you’ve got this and it’s wonderful and educational, I like the idea that you’re teaching spa owners a little bit of that business piece. That’s what I’m passionate about too, a lot of spa business owners do not understand that I caught Bob back as a back office business and you’re letting them know that they need to own the business. Back to the question, how will you monetize Spapreneurs, is that a goal?

Ramona: Spapreneur is monetized, the way we make money is, the first thing is we have a monthly Spapreneur membership community where spaprenuers pay a flat fee and they get a weekly call with me as a group, all of education materials, we have a new workshopS, all of our courses, everything. We tried to do a course model and I just didn’t like it because again, listening to your customers, these guys are busy so they need smaller courses. Well, I can’t make a lot of money making a smaller course, so it’s like how can I do this, let’s make it kind of a Netflix model, so that’s the first way.

The second way we do it is, we have private masterminds where I take no more than 15 Spaprenuers and the average price of that, the last one I just had was 500 dollars per person, the next one’s going to be 750 and it’s a 90 day intensive called six pillars where we really work their business. We also have private coaching.

Julie: What do they call it, mastermind group?

Ramona: It’s a mastermind, yeah.

Julie: Yeah, mastermind group for spa owners. That’s great. So, how are you reaching people?

Ramona: This podcast is our number one tool of reaching people, we get downloads of about 3500 a month right now. It doesn’t sound loud a lot but for a niche podcast of spa-ing, yes that’s huge. The other thing-

Julie: Oh my god, that’s wonderful. No, that’s a good amount. So, how did you get the word out about your podcast to make it?

Ramona: Yeah. What I did was, the first thing is make sure that you remember that the apple podcast and Google podcast is search engines. So, make sure that your titles are very clear, like our titles are really like, I think this last weeks episode was, “How to market for your day spa in the fall?” and we were very specific.

Julie: Those are great ones because they just kind of hook you and they’re clear.

Ramona: Yeah, so very searchable and then the other thing is when we first started out, I tried to join as many Facebook groups, because that’s where all my Spapreneurs were, that had to do with massage therapy, or skin care, or anything and I just listened. If I could answer questions via the podcast episodes we had, I started doing that. The real way we really got attention was last year I did a free challenge, a 31 day challenge to get everybody ready for Christmas, because that was something I knew that none of my competitors were talking about and it was something to put me on the map and it was a course I probably could have charged for. Like, this here we’re actually charging 300 dollars for doing this course, so last year was completely free and that’s what really got us on the map.

Julie: What was the course, what did you do?

Ramona: Everyday I sent them a video that was no more than ten minutes about one thing they needed to do to get ready for the Christmas season. So, preparing their gift certificates, preparing the marketing, getting ready for holiday hours, are you going to be off on Christmas day, what do you do for your people who celebrate Hanukah or don’t celebrate Christmas at all, those type of things.

Julie: A lot of people, a lot of business owners, they get so caught up in that day to day because that’s where we’re living and putting out the fires and dealing with everything, but all of a sudden Christmas is there and on the 16th you’re going, “Oh, boy what am I going to be doing?”, you know and wondering all those things that you guided them through, that was brilliant.

Ramona: Yeah, so we started that in October and 700 people went through that challenge, it just kind of became, I mean I did a tiny bit of Facebook advertising but not really, instead it was word of mouth. So, had a few Spaprenuers sign up and they were like, “This is amazing, you all need to sign up for it.” because it was free and it just blew up, and that’s what started it. So, you need to offer something of really high quality and value, if you’re doing consulting suite business like this, I like to think about it as if you go to Baskin Robins, they give you the little spoon and they will let you have as many little pieces to try all their ice cream without any pressure to buy.

That’s what you need to do as your business owner, find your little pink spoon. For us it was that and the podcast now, so it’s just a little spoon so they get a taste and then we have this free Facebook community, I do the free Facebook community and then I get to go into my paid community and that’s where it starts.

Julie: That’s great, you’ve done an awesome job I love turning the growth and that’s really impressive with the podcast. How long have you been doing the podcast?

Ramona: We’re at 58 episodes, we took last summer completely off, so it’s been about two years. We do everything they say not to do, we take weeks off, we curse in a business podcast, again, “Oh, don’t do that.” Our audience loves it.

Julie: Okay, I have to listen to that, I struggle with that. It’s coming out of my vocabulary and you know, you got to be real.

Ramona: If it’s not you though, then you shouldn’t. My mother and I, this is how we talk to each other, so it just makes sense. So, when we talk about, you know and then the other thing I think that makes our show really unique is we really bring our audience in. So, if our audience is talking about something, we build the show about what they want to talk about, we really key in to our audience and what they want to know and I think that helps us a lot. It’s just fun, we have a lot of fun on the show. The show is designed to be entertainment first, educational second that’s the difference.

Julie: Yes, a total difference because they’re just kind of hanging out with you around the kitchen table, having a glass of wine and going back and forth and learning something in the process.

Ramona: My mother and I want to talk about that. I’ll give you an example, recently we had a client who was facing the end of her life and we knew that this is something that no one had ever talked about before, so we did an actual series episode on how do you help clients who are dealing with these issues and we talked about me losing my husband. Those are really moving episodes, some of them come through where they’re like, “How do we do this?” and we’re like, “This is a great podcast question, we’re going to answer this.”

Julie: That’s fabulous, that’s a place where people don’t always want to go. You’re a safe environment because you are their business girlfriend.

Ramona: Right, exactly. We’re their business girlfriend. So, you would know that and other times it’s because we’re launching a new product, so we want to talk about something specific, so this week we’re actually, I don’t know if it’s this week or next week we’re launching an episode, “It’s Time To Get Ready For The Holidays.” and people are like, “Why are you doing that?” because we’re about to launch our 31 day holiday challenge again. Yeah, so sometimes we do it based on what we need and what we want to talk about, but overall the show is a combination of what my mom and I feel like we should have, in the industry last fall when the Me Too movement was happening and there were some controversies with some chain based pods facing sexual harassment, we did an episode on that because it was time.

So, we usually record episodes three to four at a time, but sometimes we’ll sneak in and do one in between just because it’s such a good topic and we need to get it done.

Julie: Right, that’s great. That’s what’s really cool, is that in a world where everybody’s talking about what they want to do, you’re doing it. Because, we know how busy we are as women, right?

Julie: And there are so many people who want to put together a podcast, but everything else in their life gets in the way and then it doesn’t happen, but you’ve realized this is part of what I need to build this business and do this. You’re focusing on it and yet, being a woman who knows what you need to do, you take a week off, you took a summer off. I think you really have been worrying about that and not doing what you need to do and everything else will follow. I respect that, it’s not necessarily prescribed, you’re making it tailored to you.

Ramona: Yeah, exactly. I think that’s the misconception with any kind of business owner, is that you have to ultimately yes, you can get all the advice you want to from everybody but if that advice doesn’t fit into your work schedule, it doesn’t. For example, everybody’s, at least in my business circle, was following ‘The Miracle Morning’ for a while. That doesn’t work, I have two small children, and this doesn’t work. Maybe to people who have no children.

Julie: Did you try it for any morning, or did you, you know?

Ramona: I have read the book and I’m like, “This is crazy.”

Julie: They’re not going to back it up to five and then four, no. The thing is that I may be starting later but I’m still getting the same crap done, so I don’t need to get up at that time. I organize my day differently, I respect whatever it takes to get people on a routine or a schedule for their business, I think it’s a good thing, but I don’t have to get up at 6:00 AM to do it. It reads really well, it reads like, “Oh, yeah. I’ve got to keep this going.” Not going to happen for this girl!

Ramona: I was like, you have to know your limit. A lot of times with business ownership, especially if you’re following the business gurus, you want to experiment in something, just wait. Follow the course you’re on now and then pivot if you need to.

Julie: Right. It’s like, okay this is the flavor of the month or this is the newest trend and what’s kind of funny, being an old gal, a lot of it is a rehash of things I heard 20 years ago. It’s like fashion, it comes back in. It’s a repackaging of something and then it hits the trends. This time it’s kind of like, I like the track I’m on with this and a lot of times I think you have to just follow your gut. I know there’s some things in my business right now as far as where I’m trying to grow, that some of the advice has been, “Oh, you don’t want to do that, you need to market it or find a way to monetize that part.” and there’s a part where I’m just going, this part has to be sacred and not monetized, just be there for people and the rest of it can be monetized. I’m just standing firm on it because I know in my gut that’s the best thing to do.

Ramona: Exactly. I totally agree and I think that business owners, they just have to, you know we say this to a lot of Spapreneurs, you need to have a road map. You need to have a place where you’re going, you cannot be successful by accident. It doesn’t happen that way that never happens. I don’t care what anybody says, there’s some planning involved somewhere. The idea of not having business plans, that’s ludicrous. Like, sit down and make a business plan, go to your local chain or commerce and get them to help you build a business plan, it’s a really good thing to have.

Julie: I always liked Gary Vaynerchuk -what he says about, and it can’t be 100 percent for every business, but a lot of it is, you figure out what your goal is. You know, you got your long term goal and your short term goal et cetera and you build your way back. Then you’ve got a stepping stone and then you can break it down. That’s all it is, just finding out what your goal is and then breaking it down into the steps to get back there. I like that idea, he calls it reverse engineering and there’s something to be said for that. What’s it going to take me to get there? Instead of just having that goal and then not knowing what you’re doing. So, just find a way to get a plan. That’s definitely key.

Whenever I see a woman entrepreneur rise and help show other women how powerful they can be and show how successful they can be makes my heart happy. There’s just no stopping an empowered woman! Let’s show Ramona some love on her Instagram account @spapreneur.